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rhe Making of a 
Newspaper Man 



SAMUEL G. BLYTHE 
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PHILADELPHIA 

HENRY ALTEAIUS COMPANY 



COPYKIGHT, 1912, BY 

Howard E. Altemus 



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The Making of a Newspaper Man 



CHAPTER I n ff 



f 

THERE was to be a murder trial at the little 
county-seat where I was born and where 
I lived as a boy. I was just eighteen 
at the time. Murder trials were infrequent in 
that county and this one attracted wide local at- 
tention. The city papers were preparing to give 
some space to it and the county papers had 
printed columns about it. 

It was the first murder trial I remember much 
about, though when I was a small boy they 
hanged a man in the jailyard, which enlivening 
and novel occurrence had set all the small boys 
in the village to making gallows and hanging 
cats and dogs, and even fieldmice and rabbits^ 

3 



( :-J 



4 THE MAKING OF A 

Once we built a big gallows and tried to hang a 
calf, but that didn't work very well — and the 
man who owned the calf caused some acute dis- 
comfort to the amateur executioners. Until he 
caught me, I never realized how much power 
there is concealed in the human leg and foot 
when the foot is shod with a cowhide boot. Still, 
murder trials and murders were always a fruit- 
ful topic of boyish conversation. Instead of 
using a trap for the condemned man to fall 
through to eternity, the local plan was to jerk 
him into the hereafter by means of a big weight 
fastened to a rope running over the top of the 
gallows and released by a spring. The weight 
was an iron atf air and the tradition was that 
it weighed three hundred and sixty-five pounds. 
At any rate, it was kept in the cellar of the court- 
house ; and as the frequent sheriffs always had 
boys in their families the cellar of the court- 
house was a favorite place of resort. Conse- 
quently, when conversation languished, the 
weight was always there to furnish inspiration 
for speculation as to whom it would be used on 



NEWSPAPEE MAN 5 

next and the coordinated and congenial theme 
of murders and murderers. 

Of course, having arrived at the mature age 
of eighteen, I had long since ceased foregather- 
ing in the court-house cellar and trying to lift 
the weight and discussing murders and the last 
hanging; but when this case was moved for 
trial, and the farmers began to come in, I was 
as much interested as I had been in the hanging 
of the unfortunate years before, and so were 
all my companions and friends. Our nearest 
city was thirty miles away and the daily papers 
came in on the morning and evening trains. 
They devoted one page to the news of the 
country through which they circulated and had 
correspondents in each village of importance. 
The correspondent for the biggest of the morn- 
ing papers from our town was a young lawyer, 
a warm friend of mine. It so happened he had 
other business to attend to at the time of the 
trial and he asked me to report it for the city 
paper. 

My father was editor of one of the two weekly 



6 THE MAKING OF A 

papers in our town, and naturally I had fussed 
about the printing office a good bit. Moreover, 
I always received better marks for compositions 
than the other boys, and my rhetoric teacher 
had prophesied a great future for me. Also, I 
had secretly determined to be a newspaper man, 
although my father objected strenuously, say- 
ing the business was no good. So, when the 
regular correspondent asked me to do his work, 
I jumped eagerly at the chance. The arrange- 
ment was that I was to have the pay for the 
work that he would have received had he done 
it. The emolument for the literature of coun- 
try correspondence in that particular city news- 
paper office was four dollars a column, which 
seemed a princely compensation, for I was to 
have a front seat at the reporters^ table, was 
to hear the whole trial ; and likely as not there 
would be some city reporters there with whom 
I might get acquainted and thus find an oppor- 
tunity to discuss my ambition to be a regular 
reporter myself. I would have worked for 
nothing. 



NEWSPAPER MAN 7 

The trial began on Monday, and I made a 
longhand running report of the proceedings, 
got it in the afternoon mail and telegraphed a 
short, skeletonized summary of what happened 
after the mail closed. I have filed several mil- 
lion words of telegraphic dispatches to news- 
papers since that day, twenty-five years ago, ^..S 
from all parts of the world ah"d "on all sorts of / ^ 
big stones; bnt I have never filed a dispatch if S 
that seemed quite as important and sensational 
as that. I was all puffed up when I handed it 
to the telegraph operator, who had known me 
since I was a baby, and she was greatly inter- 
ested and promised to send it right away. Like- 
wise, I have dealt with and known hundreds of 
telegraph and cable operators in my time, have 
fought with them, coaxed them, cursed them, 
bought them, cultivated them, loafed with them ; 
but that dear lady who sent my first newspaper 
dispatch, while I hung around nervously waiting 
to see her finish it, remains in my mind as the 
highest type of the exponents of the business 
which I was to be so interested in in later life. 



8 THE MAKING OF A 

Telegraph operators have befriended me, 
have balked me, have put my stuff ahead and 
given me highly useful information to my great 
credit in the home office, and have held back 
my dispatches to my great discredit in the same 
important place ; they have endangered their 
jobs to pull me through and have cost me a 
job or two by utter cussedness. Some of the 
best fellows I ever knew were in the telegraph 
business, and are yet; but never a one of them 
did so much for me, I still think, as the lady 
who sent my first two hundred words and told 
me it was quite intelligent. 

I was at the post-office next morning an hour 
before the papers came, and when they finally 
did arrive I grabbed the first one I could get. 
I was much chagrined to find that news of Con- 
gress and the Legislature and a prize fight were 
prominently displayed on that first page. There 
wasn 't a line about the murder trial. I hurried 
in to consult the postmaster and asked him if 
he was sure my letter got away. He was sure 
and suggested it was possible the murder-trial 



NEWSPAPER MAN 9 

story might be on some other page of the paper 
than the first. I hadn^t thought of that. It had 
never occurred to me that my dispatch could 
possibly be any other place than on 'the first 
column of the first page. I have had that feel- 
ing a good many times since, too. 

I found the dispatch on page three, two col- 
umns, with a four-line head. I read it eagerly, 
lamenting a few typographical errors, and feel- 
ing much discouraged because the editors had 
cut out half a column or so of the very best 
part^ — as I thought. The papers came in at nine 
o^clock in the morning and court began at ten. 
I spent that hour swelling around on Main 
Street, feeling quite sure everybody had read 
my story, and thinking perhaps the judge and 
the lawyers would say something about it. Be- 
sides, it meant almost eight dollars in money 
for me — a sum I had never thought any person 
could make for a day's work. Also, it clinched 
me for the newspaper business. I was a born 
journalist. There was no doubt of that. And 
it was a cinch. Eight dollars for a few hours' 



10 THE MAXING OF A 

work that was really play ! Nobody in the village 
made so much working for wages. 

I worked my head off that week and sent in 
columns that were printed and columns that 
were not. In the evenings I went to the hotel 
and talked to the city reporters who were on 
the story. Much to my surprise, they didn't 
think newspaper work was a noble profession, 
highly paid, dignified and supremely important. 
They said reporting was *^ darned hard work," 
that the pay was small and the hours long. Also, 
they said — all of them — their city editors were 
individually and collectively the mesmest^men 
on earth, and it was a poor game all round. 
Later, I entertained the same ideas, especially 
about the city editors, and had the same ideas 
entertained, quite extensively, about me when I 
became a city editor myself. I made almost 
sixty dollars that week — ^more than I was to 
make in many a weary week afterward — and 
had my story on the first page the day the man 
on trial went on the stand. 



NEWSPAPER MAN 11 



CHAPTER II 

On Saturday a man who was employed on a 
Sunday paper in the city where my paper was 
published — I had begun to talk of it as ^^my'^ 
paper — came to get a story for Sunday morn- 
ing. I didn't know it then, but that man was 
to cross and crisscross my life for several years 
— principally cross. He sat next to me at the 
table, and asked me if I was the ^^yap" who 
had been doing the trial for the ^* Gazette.'' I 
said I was. ^^ Pretty good for a rube !" he com- 
mented. I had asked the other city reporters 
about the chance for getting a job as a regular 
on the staff of some paper in the city. They 
told me jobs were scarce, that the penurious 
proprietors always filled up with a cheap jay 
from some college when a high-priced man was 
fired, and advised me, unanimously and pro- 
fanely, to stick to the village or go on a farm. 



12 THE MAKING OF A 

It was a rotten business, anyhow, they said — 
and nothing, positively nothing, in it. 

Still, the man from the Sunday paper seemed 
to have different ideas. He was older. He told 
me he had been in the business for fifteen years 
and was writing a book about it — a guide for 
aspirants. Of the book, more later; but I asked 
him if there was any chance to get a job. He 
told me confidentially there was going to be a 
shakeup on the paper I was reporting the trial 
for ; that he was going back over there as city 
editor, and that it wouldn't hurt any to go down 
and apply. He said he would put in a good 
word for me. 

I could hardly wait for that trial to finish, 
although I was making six and eight dollars a 
day out of it. On the day after I sent in my last 
batch of copy I took the morning train to the 
city and hurried up to the newspaper office. I 
had often stood outside that office, which shel- 
tered the biggest paper in the city and one of 
the biggest in the state, and wondered if ever 
I should get a chance to work on it and learn 



NEWSPAPER MAN 13 

the business there. I asked a man in the count- 
ing room where the editor's office was. He 
looked at me curiously and told me it was up 
another flight. I climbed up, with my heart 
beating like a pneumatic riveter. 

There was a door with frosted glass in it at 
the top of the dark stairs, and on the door the 
magic words ^* Editorial Rooms'' were painted. 
This was about half past eight in the morning. 
I knocked on the door. Nobody came. Then 
I pushed it open and found myself in a long 
room with the floor littered with torn news- 
papers, proofsheets, copy paper and all the 
numerous evidences of work the night before. 
Nobody was there. 

I noticed a little coop in one corner of the 
room that held a desk and chair, and at the 
far end three other rooms. The doors to these 
rooms were labeled: ^^ Managing Editor," 
'^Editor" and ^^ Editorial Writers." The long 
room was crowded with old desks, and along 
one side there was a table built against the wall, 
on which there were heaps of the local papers. 



14 THE MAKING OF A 

That table was where we used to sleep when 
we were stuck for the long watch. I thought 
it a particularly untidy and uninviting place 
then. Six months later it often seemed to me 
the softest bed in the city. The door of the 
little coop in the corner of the big room was 
labeled ^^City Editor." I knew dimly he was 
the man I wanted to see. 

I sat down and waited. Presently a boy came 
in and made a pretense of sweeping up the floor. 
He was not an attractive boy and not much 
younger than myself. He looked at the littered 
room with supreme disgust. 

*^ These dubs must 'a' bin brought up in a 
barn," he said, ^Hhe way they throw stuff 
around." 

''What dubs?" I ventured. 

''These reporters," he answered. "They 
gimme a pain! Whatchu want!" 

"I want to see the editor," I answered with 
such dignity as I could command. 

He stopped sweeping. "Somethin' wrong in 
d^ pape?" he asked in a more respectful tone. 



NEWSPAPER MAN 15 

*^1 suppose some of them dubs has bin gittin' 
the wrong dope." 

'*No/' I replied. ^'1 want to get a position 
on the staff." 

* ' Nothin ' doin % ' ' he asserted. ^ ^ They 's firin ' 
instid of hirin'." 

Then he went on sweeping and paid no further 
attention to me. I sat there for nearly three 
hours and not a person came into that room ex- 
cept another boy with a big bunch of news- 
papers. He threw them on a desk and walked 
out. It hadn't occurred to me that the paper 
I wanted to work for was a morning paper and 
that the men worked at night and slept in the 
daytime. That occurred to me a good many 
times later, but it didn't dawn on me then. I 
fancied it must be a snap to work there. They 
didn't go on until afternoon apparently; and, 
as everybody quit at six o'clock where I came 
from, that would mean only a short day. If I 
could only get a job I knew I should have an 
easy time. 

About noon the door was pushed violently 



16 THE MAKING OF A 

open and a short man with a gray mnstache 
came in. He was not much more than five feet 
tall, but he had a massive head and one of the 
most intelligent faces I have ever seen. He 
glanced at me and went into the room marked 
' ' Editor. ' ^ I heard him moving about the room, 
and heard him also shout: ^*0h, boy!^' No 
boy came. He shouted again. Then he said, 
^'Damn those boys! They are getting worse 
all the time ! ' ' and came out into the room where 
I was sitting. He looked round, took a copy of 
the morning paper from a desk and went back. 
If he noticed me at all I wasn't aware of it. 

Nobody came in for another half hour. I 
could hear the man in the other room swinging 
back and forth in his chair, could hear news- 
papers rustling, hear him thump the desk a 
couple of times and knew from other sounds 
he was clipping things out of papers. Then I 
decided I might just as well talk to him as the 
city editor, who probably didn't get down for 
an hour or two; and I went timidly into his 
office. He was tilted away back in his chair, 



NEWSPAPEE MAN 17 

reading a paper and chewing vigorously on 
something I learned afterward was paper, for 
I saw him tear strips of it and pnt them into 
his mouth. 

''Are you the editor f I asked. 

''Yes,'^ he said, peering at me over the top 
of the paper. ' ' What do you want f ' ' 

'*! want a job/' I blurted. 

''What kind of a job?'' 

"I want to be a reporter." 

He had dropped the paper and was looking 
at me not unkindly. 

"Have you ever had any experience!" 

"No, sir — that is, not much. I have written 
some for my father's paper and I reported that 
murder trial for you." 

He was interested. 

"Are you the man who reported that murder 
trial 1" 

"Yes, sir." 

"Well," half to himself, "that wasn't so bad 
— not so bad. What's your name?" 

I told him and he scribbled it down. "All 

2— Newspaper Man. 



18 THE MAKING OF A 

right/' he said, picking up his paper and smil- 
ing at me pleasantly, ^^I'll speak to the city 
editor abont it. You will hear from him. Good 
morning.'' 

I suppose I walked out of that room, hut I 
don't know. It seemed to me I floated out and 
down those dingy stairs. I was certain I should 
get a place — and I caromed round the city in a 
dream until it came traintime. 

When I got home I told my father I thought 
I could get a place on the local staff of the 
^^ Gazette." He shrugged his shoulders. ^^All 
right," he said; ^^hut it's a poor business." 
For the next two days I was the first person at 
the post-office at mailtime and the last to leave. 
Then came a letter in the morning mail on the 
third day. It was from the city editor and said 
the editor had spoken to him of me ; that there 
was a vacancy on the local staff I could have; 
that if I wanted it I was to report to him a 
week from the following Sunday morning. The 
salary, he added, would be ten dollars a 
week. 



NEWSPAPER MAN 19 

I dashed down the street to my father's office. 
<<IVe got it/' I shouted to him as I burst into 
his office. 

*'Got what?'' he asked. 

"Got a job on the ^Gazette.' '' 

**God help you!" he said, and turned to his 
writing. 



20 THE MAKING OE A 



CHAPTER III 

Money is never particularly plentiful in the 
family of a country editor and our family was 
no exception. However, my friend, the young 
lawyer who had let me sub for him on the mur- 
der trial and who thus had really secured my 
job for me, advanced me some out of his scanty 
store on the check he would get for me at the 
end of the month ; and at two o ^clock on Sunday 
week — exactly on the minute — I walked again 
into that big room. I had been hanging round 
the foot of the stairs for an hour for fear I 
might be late. 

There was a man in the little coop in the 
corner, writing in a black-covered book. Six 
or seven young men were sitting in the long 
room, smoking and talking about a scoop the 
opposition paper had that morning. They paid 
no attention to me. I stood for a minute and 



NEWSPAPEE MAN 21 

listened to them. From what I could gather it 
seemed certain there would be a hot time when 
the managing editor came in. Presently the 
man in the coop looked up and saw me. 

**Do you want to see meV^ he asked. 

**I want to see the city editor.'^ 

* * Go ahead, ' ^ he said. ^ * I am that unfortunate 
person.'' I guessed he was thinking about the 
scoop, too. 

I told him my name and showed him his let- 
ter to me. 

'^How do?'' he said, sticking out his hand. 
^^I'U have an assignment for you presently." 

Then he took me out into the big room and 
introduced me to the men there. They all 
greeted me pleasantly — and one man, older than 
the rest, with much cordiality. I didn't know 
why then, but I soon learned. My advent re- 
lieved him of the necessity of writing the local 
notices — the most despised job on the paper. 

** Here's the trouble !" sang out the city editor, 
and the men all flocked round and looked at the 
black-covered book in which he was writing 



22 THE MAKING OF A 

when I first came in. That black-covered book 
was the assignment book, and opposite each 
man's name were his assignments for the day. 
I waited until the men had copied off their tasks 
and then looked for mine. I was to see the 
colonel of a local regiment that had returned 
from camp that morning and get a story, and 
I was to report a sermon at night. Also, op- 
posite my name was '4ocal notices.'^ 

I noticed that one man was assigned to 
do ^'police," another *^ railroads," another 
^* hotels," and so on. I soon learned there were 
regular men on these assignments, as on ^^ courts 
and city hall" on weekdays, and ^^politicians" 
and ^^ theatres," and so on; and I wondered 
when I should get a chance at *^ theatres" or 
** police," feeling myself well qualified to cope 
with either or both right off the bat. However, 
it wasn't long until I found out it would be 
some time before I got theatres or police, or 
anything but the dub assignments. No matter 
what I thought of my own abilities, the city 
editor positively refused to consider me except 



NEWSPAPER MAN 23 

as a dub, who must be taught^ — and I am quite 
sure lie was right, looking back at it now. 

The reporters interested me. Aside from the 
city reporters who were up in my village on the 
murder trial, they were the first real reporters 
I had ever seen. They were young, energetic, 
free-and-easy chaps, with a most amazing — to 
me — knowledge of all that was going on in the 
city, with the most contem]3tuous opinion of the 
big-wigs of the place of whom I had read for 
years and whom I imagined to be most remark- 
able citizens, free of opinion, full of youth and 
youthful cynicism, calling big politicians and 
city officials and merchants and others of the 
prominent by their first names, cocksure of every 
statement and bored by things that were new 
and marvelous to me. They all smoked and 
most of them drank a little. They knew the 
night life as well as the day life. They spoke 
familiarly with policemen and firemen. They 
knew the cafe-keepers and all the local charac- 
ters of whom I had been reading — knew them 
intimately, it seemed — and disapproved of most 



24 THE MAKING OF A 

of them. I wondered if I should ever get to 
the dizzy height of calling the chief of police 
*^ Jim" and referring to the mayor as ^^Cornie/' 

What an underpaid, happy-go-lncky, careless 
and, in the case of several, brilliant crowd it 
was ! Not one of them had a cent, or expected 
to have one, except on payday. All lived from 
hand to mouth. All worked fourteen, sixteen, 
seventeen hours a day at the most grueling work, 
reporting on a paper in a small city where many 
yawning columns must be filled each day whether 
there is anything going on or not, and all loyal 
to the core to that paper, fighting its battles, 
working endlessly to put a scoop over on the 
opposition morning paper, laboring until four 
o'clock in the morning for from ten to fifteen 
dollars a week, doing anything that came along 
from a state convention to a church wedding. 

Everything was grist that came to that mill 
and those boys were the millers. They are scat- 
tered now to all parts of the earth. Some have 
stuck to the newspaper business and some have 
left it; but they were a brave crowd of young- 



NEWSPAPER MAN 25 

sters then and they took me up and made me 
one of them, and taught me the rudiments of 
my business. I worked with and against the 
best reporters in this country and abroad for 
many years, but I never found a crowd like 
that — my first colleagues, with whom I lived and 
borrowed and played and worked when I was 
both a cub and a dub — good friends, good re- 
porters, good fellows! 

I went up to see the colonel of the returned 
regiment. Much to my surprise, he did not seem 
awed when I told him so distinguished a journ- 
alist as a reporter for the ^^ Gazette'^ had 
vouchsafed to call on him, but asked rather 
shortly, ^'Well, what do you wantT' I told 
him and he gave me a long story, detailing the 
splendid achievements of his command and not 
omitting his own great part in the success of 
the affair. I hurried back to the office and wrote 
until my arm ached. When I turned in my copy 
the city editor looked at the bale of it and said : 
*'Gosh! What did he do? Kill somebody? I 
only wanted a couple of sticks. '^ 



26 THE MAKINGS OF A 

"You wait,'^ I thouglit, "until you see now 
important that article is and tlien you'll change 
your opinion. ' ' However, he didn 't wait. With 
a sick heart, I saw him throw page after page 
of it on the floor. Next morning they printed 
about three inches of my article and not much 
of it resembled what I had written. That was 
a jolt, but I had a harder one. The sermon I 
was to report was by a returned missionary 
bishop. I argued that, inasmuch as they wanted 
a report at all, they must want a good one, and 
I labored hard making notes of the sermon and 
in transcribing them at the office. Then I got 
my second lesson. Sermons are covered only 
because nothing else much goes on in a small 
city on Sunday — or were in my cub days; and 
if any live news comes in the sermons are cut 
down. Some live news came in that night — a 
police case that involved somebody well known ; 
and next morning my report of the sermon was 
reduced about ninety per cent, when it appeared 
in type. 

I didn't get to my room until four o'clock that 



NEWSPAPER MAN 27 

morning, but I got up at seven and went out and 
bought a copy of the paper. I turned eagerly 
to the local pages and found my two little items. 
I was the proudest boy in the United States. 
To be sure they had not appreciated my articles 
at their full worth; but they printed some of 
them right in the paper, in the local sections, 
and I was a regular reporter on a regular paper ! 
I wouldn't have traded jobs with Charles A. 
Dana! I thought everybody was pointing me 
out as the brilliant young journalist of the ^* Ga- 
zette'' as I walked down to the office, where, 
by the way, I arrived three hours ahead of time 
and occupied my leisure in reading and reread- 
ing my contributions to the sum of the world's 
wisdom that morning. I have them yet, pasted 
in a scrapbook — 1>wo gems of English literature ! 
Nothing I have ever read or written compares 
with those two items — the one about the regi- 
ment and the other about the missionary bishop. 



28 THE MAKING OF A 



CHAPTEE IV 

I soon discovered that all the ideas I had 
about the ease and dignity of the work of a re- 
porter on a daily paper in a small city were 
entirely erroneous. We reported at the office at 
one o 'clock and took our afternoon assignments. 
These we were expected to have covered and 
the copy in before six. We reported again at 
seven-thirty and got our night assignments, and 
the copy for those was to be in by eleven or 
twelve. Then the proofs began coming and no- 
body could go until the last local proof was read 
and revised. This was generally about one or 
half past. Then the long- watch man stayed until 
four, catching that assignment two or three 
times a week and watching the police station 
and the fire alarm for any late crime or fire 
that might occur. 

Expense bills were carefully scrutinized. No 



NEWSPAPER MAN 29 

reporter was supposed to take a street car if 
his assignment was within a mile of the office 
unless there was a great rush, and all street 
cars stopped at midnight. Thus, if there was a 
late fire the reporter who had it was expected 
to run his mile and run back in time to catch 
the last form. If the fire was over a mile away, 
in a dangerous district, the city editor would 
allow a cab, but not too often, for the old man 
downstairs thought cabs and reporters not com- 
patible with the economical conduct of his great 
organ of public opinion and instruction. 

Naturally the new man on the staff was given 
the drudgery. He had to hold copy on proof 
and read the revises. He was stuck with the 
long watch oftener than anybody else. There 
were seven reporters and each man had a day 
off, thus leaving six to get all the news in a city 
of almost a hundred thousand people, and, as 
the paper was a big one, to write enough stuff 
to fill twenty-five or thirty columns — and some- 
times more. I frequently had fourteen or fifteen 
assignments in a day — ^not big ones, but four- 



30 THE MAKING OF A 

teen or fifteen places that had to be visited, 
whether they produced copy or not. 

Then there were the ' ' local notices. ' ' How we 
hated those! They were advertisements, in 
news-paragraph style, that ran from ^yq to fif- 
teen lines each and were inserted on the local 
pages. Each day had its quota and tabs telling 
what was to be written each day hung on hooks 
in the city editor's room. They were for shoe 
stores, drug stores, all kinds of stores ; and the 
advertising man guaranteed they would be 
^* bright and snappy.'' Think of working all 
the afternoon and writing two columns of stuff, 
and then being obliged to go to the hook, get 
the tabs and write ^^ bright and snappy" items 
about Beegin's shoes and Boogin's bread, run- 
ning from fiYQ to fifteen lines! Those ^^ local 
notices" gave me my first pause about the de- 
sirability of the newspaper business as a career. 

Ten dollars a week, with no other revenue, is 
not a princely income. Still, under the coaching 
of my brethren, who were living on it, I soon 
(learned how to stretch that ten dollars to cover 



NEWSPAPER MAN 31 

seven days. There was a good place where they 
sold yon for three dollars a ticket which entitled 
you to twenty-one meals. Inasmuch as we all 
slept late, we had an arrangement whereby the 
landlady left a luncheon on the table at midnight 
in lieu of breakfast. That settled the eating 
problem. By bunking together, two men could 
get a pretty fair room in those days for four 
dollars, or two dollars each. That used up half 
of the ten, but it provided the sterner neces- 
saries. There was a friendly tailor who would 
make you a suit of clothes for twenty-six dollars 
— a dollar down and a dollar a week. I never 
knew how he did it; but that tailor had things 
calculated to such a nicety that at the end of 
the twenty-six weeks it was absolutely neces- 
sary to buy a new suit or have the old one drop 
off you in tatters — and we were always in debt 
to him. Taking out the tailor's dollar — ^which 
we did not always do, by the way — we had four 
dollars left for riotous living, shoes, laundry, 
tobacco and everything else. Of course some 
of the boys got twelve dollars and one or two 



32 THE MAKING OF A 

fifteen. The city editor was a plntocrat — lie got 
twenty-five; and the assistant city editor, who 
was a reporter every day except the city editor's 
day off, got seventeen. 

I remember the day I drew my first week's 
salary. The assistant city editor was at the 
cashier's window with me. The cashier, who 
was a good fellow and wonld advance a dollar 
or two in case of dire necessity, shoved our en- 
velopes out face down. They were small manila 
envelopes, with the name of the recipient writ- 
ten across the middle and the sum within in 
figures on the upper left-hand corner. I took 
my ten with a fluttering heart. It was my first 
salary as a regular reporter. It meant, too, that 
I had made good enough to last a week, at any 
rate, and probably could worry through another 
week. The assistant city editor ostentatiously 
turned his envelope over and showed me that 
magnificent '^$17.00" on the corner. It was 
wealth beyond compare. '^My boy," he said 
in a very patronizing manner, ^4f you ever 
get so you can pull down that much you 



NEWSPAPEE MAN 33 

will be a real newspaper man/' I thought 
so too. 

The city editor earned his twenty-five dollars. 
In addition to giving out the assignments and 
being responsible for the local, he was super- 
visor of the sporting pages and the theatrical 
news, read all the copy — there were no such per- 
sons as copy-readers then in the small cities — 
wrote the headlines, made up his pages and took 
the kicks from the managing editor when the 
opposition scooped us. He was a busy young 
person, with a sour Yiew of life and an inor- 
dinate desire for something that was exclusive, 
by which he meant something the other morning 
paper did not have. Likewise, he was always 
embroiled in bitter warfare with the foreman 
of the composing room, who was constantly try- 
ing to leave out some of his local, and as con- 
stantly at odds with the reporters, each of whom 
fought always to get space for his particular 
story or stories and gloomed darkly and 
talked of the decadence of the game when 
the city editor told him to make a quarter of 

3 — Newspaper Man. 



34 THE MAKING OF A 

a column of the yarn lie hoped to write a 
column about. 

Everybody was eager and enthusiastic. All 
were bound up in their paper. They growled 
and talked privately of the penuriousness of the 
proprietor, and the cussedness of the city editor, 
and the malignant managing editor, and the 
f eeble-mindedness of the editor ; but they were 
ready and willing to fight when anybody else 
intimated their paper was not the greatest in 
the state. They worked incredibly hard for pit- 
tances, walking miles and miles in snow and 
rain and heat, and toiling long hours through 
the night ; but their complaints were all among 
themselves. To outsiders they were a gay and 
debonair bunch of young chaps, engaged in 
getting out the best paper of them all; and 
they took as much joy in *^ putting one over'^ on 
the opposition paper as they would in getting a 
thousand-dollar legacy. It was a good atmos- 
phere to begin in. Likewise, it gave an ex- 
perience of all sides of the business ; for there 
wasn't a man in the lot who couldn't write heads, 



NEWSPAPER MAN 35 

read proof, read and edit telegrapli, make up, 
write advertising, write special articles and do 
any story passably well, no matter whether it 
was about a prize fight or a church convention. 

The routine assignments were divided under 
broad general heads. There was a police man, 
a court man, a railroad man — and so on. My 
first regular assignment was ^^ railroads, under- 
takers and morgue. ' ' That meant that I was ex- 
pected, in addition to any other assignments the 
city editor might wish me to cover, to visit all 
the railroad offices ; go to the station when the 
big trains were due; go to the big undertakers 
and copy the death certificates ; visit the morgue 
twice a day to see if any bodies were there and 
where they came from. It meant, also, a walk 
of six or seven miles each afternoon, for no re- 
porter could use a street car, except at his own 
expense, on a routine assignment. 

The city wasn 't much of a railroad centre ; so 
my duties consisted in visiting the railroad 
offices, where the agents invariably tried to hand 
out advertisements about excursions and such 



36 THE MAiaNG OF A 

in the guise of nevs — and rarely liad any real 
news — and visiting the stations and talking to 
the station master and dispatchers and other 
officials. These visits usually resulted in the ex- 
citing information that ^^Mr. McGuffin's special 
<?ar, Lotus, went east on Number Seventeen last 
night," though every time the brakeman or en- 
gineers or anybody else gave an excursion or 
a picnic I was expected to boom it for days. 
Then, after the little grist of local railroad 
items — occasionally there was a good story — I 
read the exchanges and clipped a dozen or so 
railroad items of general interest, which were 
pasted up and followed the local news under a 
headline like *^ Clicks from the Eails," or some 
other nifty caption. 

Unless the death certificate was of some im- 
portant person, when it was necessary to hunt 
up facts for an obituary, the news secured at 
the undertaker's shop was written in stereotyped 
form, giving the name, age, time of death and 
place of funeral of the deceased. These were 
run under a standing headline, **The Dead." 



NEWSPAPEE MAN 37 

There were about twenty undertakers who must 
be visited each day, in widely separated sections 
of the city. If you took a chance and skipped 
one it was always certain the opposition rail- 
road, undertakers-and-morgue man would visit 
that identical place that day and get a prom- 
inent death good for a spread obituary. After 
I had been on this run for a week I nearly lost 
my job by writing an obituary of some esteemed 
person and leaving out his name. It got into 
the paper that way and the scholarly managing 
editor threw fits and profanity all over the 
office. 



38 THE MAKING OF A 



CHAPTER V 

It was before the days of typewriters or lino- 
type machines and my writing was bad. How 
I envied one of our reporters who wrote a per- 
fect hand and turned in copper-plate copy ! He 
was a great favorite with the printers and used 
to go up to the composing room and swap stories 
with them; while, whenever I went through 
those sacred precincts, the printers used to rap 
with their composing sticks on their cases, an 
emphatic and disconcerting sign of typograph- 
ical disapproval. One day the foreman reported 
in the local room that Shorty Anderson, a 
printer, had thrown a '^take'' of my copy back 
on his desk, contemptuously saying: '^1 can't 
set that junk! It ain't copy. It's music — and 
I ain't got no music characters in my case."" 
And another time the chapel held a meeting 
to protest against my copy; but here Shorty 



NEWSPAPER MAN 39 

Anderson was my friend. I had supplied him 
with a convivial Latin motto for the saloon of 
a friend of his, and he came to the rescue, urging 
that the young fellow be given a chance. So I 
wasn't discharged. 

Presently a new man came on and the city 
editor passed the railroads, undertakers and 
morgue and the local notices to him. I was given 
police and soon was on terms of easy familiarity 
with the chief — whom I called ** Jim" — the cap- 
tains, the lieutenants and the detectives. We 
discussed crime learnedly — but I soon learned 
that the idea of the police was to print nothing 
about what happened in a criminal way until 
they had * investigated''; and as I broke this 
rule several times they came to look on me with 
suspicion, and it was necessary to get another 
reporter to do ** police." I had become reason- 
ably expert at proofreading and could write 
my own headlines. Our biggest head, except on 
a most sensational story, was what we called 
a four-head — a line, a pyramid, another line and 
a twenty-word pyramid to close it up. The 



40 THE MAKING OF A 

first four-head of wMch I was really proud v-^as 
over the story of the death of a telegraph line- 
man. His name was Finnegan and he fell off a 
pole. I remember the first two parts of the 
head and I thought it looked fine in print : 

FATAL FOR FINNEGAN 



Feakful Fall of Fully 
FiFTY-FiYE Feet! 

The long watch lasted until four o^clock in 
the morning, which was the time the presses 
started. All the rest left about two o ^clock, un- 
less there was a penny-ante game going, which 
there usually was after the proofs were all done. 
The long-watch man was expected to go over 
to the central police station twice and see if 
anything had happened. There was a fire-alarm 
gong in the office. On snowy or rainy nights we 
usually took a chance and called up the police 
station by telephone. On nights when we were 
very tired, as we usually were, the long-watch 
man stretched out on the file table along the 



NEWSPAPER MAN 41 

side of the room and went to sleep, relying on 
the friendly night man at the station to call up 
if anything happened. One night when I had 
the long watch I went to sleep on the files and 
went home at half -past four thinking all was 
well. It so happened that shortly after our own 
presses started that morning one of our press- 
men fell off the press and broke his neck. The 
full story appeared in the opposition paper, but 
our paper had never a word — and the accident 
happened in our own building! I never quite 
understood how I held on to my job after that — 
but I did. However, I heard a few things about 
myself from the managing editor. 

Naturally, in so small a city, there was not 
enough purely local news to fill the many col- 
umns set aside for local in our paper, and each 
week each reporter was ordered to write two or 
three ^* specials, '^ which were stories of a semi- 
news nature or on any interesting topic or thing 
that had come under his attention. If they could 
be made humorous so much the better. This 
was great training for young writers. We pro- 



42 THE MAKING OF A 

duced all sorts of yarns and I got to be pretty 
good at it, having a fertile imagination and being 
new to the city, where odd things the others 
passed by attracted me. 

Also, I worked off some of the compositions 
the rhetoric teacher had commended. We had 
one star man at this sort of thing, although 
most of the specials turned in and printed were 
very fair as newspaper copy, and some were 
brilliant. I remember my pride in this star 
man, as the youngest member of the staff, when 
he put over his famous ** Mystery of Lock Sixty- 
Six" series. He got a hand and arm of a dead 
man from a medical student he knew and 
chopped off several fingers and cut the arm in 
two or three pieces. Then he went out to Lock 
Sixty- Six on the canal and dropped in a finger, 
shortly afterward discovering said &[igeT float- 
ing in the water. He came back and wrote a 
masterly story about his discovery. He specu- 
lated graphically on the problems of where 
the finger came from, whose finger it was and 
why the police had not reported a missing 



NEWSPAPER MAN 43 

man. The police, by the way, pooh-poohed the 
whole story. 

Next day he found two more fingers and 
whooped it up again. The police were stirred. 
The other papers took it up. Next day he 
dropped in and took out a section of an arm; 
and when his third story appeared the entire 
police department was running round in circles 
and the people were excited. I can see him 
now, writing his story, smoking an old cob pipe, 
with a section of that dead arm propped up on 
his desk before him. Then, at the end, he ex- 
plained it all and made the police ridiculous. 

Once a circus came to town on Sunday to show 
on Monday. On Monday morning we had a 
sensational story about the escape of a blood- 
sweating behemoth of Holy Writ, telling how 
this ferocious animal had broken out of his 
cage and ravaged the countryside. Most of 
the town went down to see and hunt the escaped 
beast and the story made such a hit with the 
circus proprietor that he took our star man 
and made a press agent of him. Another Sun- 



44 THE MAKING OF A 

day night the striking apparatus of a big clock 
in a church steeple became disarranged and the 
bell on which the honrs were struck boomed out 
at irregular intervals all night. This was 
enough for our star man. He sat down and 
wrote a thrilling story about an escaped maniac 
who had climbed up in that steeple and was 
pounding on the bell ; and when the paper came 
out next morning half the police in the city 
marched down there to capture the madman. 

I went to work in the spring, and early in 
the fall the shakeup my friend of the Sunday 
paper had predicted came along. He came in 
as city editor. His first eifort at getting in 
touch with the staff was to assign each member 
the task of reading the book on journalism he 
had written. We all had to read it in order 
to learn how to be reporters, though we con- 
sidered ourselves about as good a bunch of re- 
porters as the country boasted outside of New 
York. I never have known why, but that man, 
who helped me get my job, took a great ap- 
parent dislike to me and made me the most mis- 



NEWSPxlPEE MAN 45 

erable young man in the newspaper business. 
He loaded impossible work on me and hazed me 
fiendishly. 

Finally he got me. One night at midnight, 
after the cars had stopped running, when there 
was three feet of soft snow on the ground and 
the snow was still falling, he came out into the 
local room and said: ''I am sorry, but I have 
overlooked a very important meeting at Number 
94 Yancey Street. It must be covered and you 
will have to go and get it.'^ 

Number 94 Yancey Street was four miles from 
the office. I asked if I might have a cab and 
he refused. I started out about midnight and 
plowed through the snow for those four miles, 
wet, cold, cursing him at every step. I didn't 
get there until nearly three o'clock. I rapped 
on the door of the house. A man stuck his head 
out of the window. I asked him for the details 
of the important meeting. 

'^T\liat meeting!'' he asked. 

**The meeting about the new railroad that 
was held here to-night. ' ' 



46 THE MAKING OF A 

**Why,'' said the man, '^we had no railroad 
meeting here ! ' ^ 

^^ Wasn't there some kind of a meeting T' I 
persisted. 

'^Not that I know of,'^ he said, and shut the 
window. As I turned away, burning with rage 
and resolving to whip that city editor next day 
if I went to jail for life, the man opened the 
window and said: *'Hi, there, kid! I forgot. 
We did have a small progressive euchre party 
here to-night, but I don't think it was very 
important. ' ' 

I started back, so tired I could hardly walk. 
Just then the snowplow came along and the 
good chap who ran it saw my predicament 
and let me ride up to Main Street with him 
on it, which was, after all, better than walk- 
ing. 

Next day I went down prepared to club the 
head of£ that city editor. I told my closest 
friend, who had been having it rubbed into him 
and was willing to help out, but who prudently 
suggested we wait until after payday, as we 



NEWSPAPEE MAN 47 

might need some money to go to some other 
town. 

That very night, ahont one o'clock, a fire 
alarm came in from the Inmber-yard district. 
The city editor rushed out and ordered the short- 
watch man to go. Then he sent the long-watch 
man and, at regular two-minute intervals, fired 
out everybody else. I was about the fifth man 
out; and I got as far as the first block up the 
street, where I met a fire-lieutenant I knew, who 
told me all about it. I came back, wrote the 
story and turned it in. Meantime the city editor 
had sent out my chum, who went up to the fire, 
which was of no account, got the story and 
walked back. He came in and sat down to write. 

**What are you doing I" asked the city editor. 

'* Writing this fire," he said. 

''Huh!" he sneered. ^'That fire story has 
been in type half an hour. You didn't seem able 
to cover it in any decent time and I got another 
account of it. " 

*^By !" shouted my chum. ''If this 

is journalism working here under this man I'll 



48 THE MAKING OF A 

quit now and go and pick gravel witii the chick- 
ens/' 

^^So will I/' I said. 

That night we sat up for hours deciding what 
we would do. We determined to huy a daily 
paper for ourselves. We knew where there was 
a paper for sale in a small Western city. And 
we hought it. I was not yet nineteen and he 
was barely twenty-one ; but we bought it. Youth 
is impetuous and we were young ! 



NEWSPAPEE MAN 49 



CHAPTER VI 

I had been a reporter for eight or nine months, 
had had my salary raised from ten to twelve dol- 
lars a week and had already demonstrated two 
things to my superiors when my partner and I 
bought our daily newspaper. 

The first was that I had a sort of talent 
for making friends with and getting the confi- 
dence of all sorts of people, from the highest 
to the lowest; and the second was that I had 
a sort of talent also for seeing the odd or un- 
usual or humorous side of an occurrence and 
could write what I saw — rather amateurishly, 
but well enough to bring out the particular thing 
that interested me. In other words, I was good 
— for a youngster — on local color and human 
interest. Furthermore, I had demonstrated that 
I hated the routine, was likely to rebel under 
discipline, had all the cocksureness of youth,, 

4 — Newspaper Man, 



50 THE MAKING OF A 

would work like a galley slave when a story in- 
terested me; but would slide through with the 
least possible exertion when the story was not 
to my liking, and that generally I was a rather 
opinionated and bumptious young person. 

It is probable I was a good deal of a trial to 
my city editors and to the managing editor, but 
they didn't discharge me; and I was grateful 
for that, though I felt at times I was not prop- 
erly appreciated, as every other enthusiastic and 
ambitious boy does. I was sure I could do the 
theatres better than the regular theatre man and 
felt slighted when a big story came along that 
I did not have a hand in. I was big, healthy, 
running over with animal spirits and certain I 
had struck my vocation. There wasn't any 
doubt in my mind that I could make a great 
success of that daily newspaper, for I thought 
I knew it all — and this after seven or eight 
months at the business, mark you! I jumped 
at the chance, for in our vealy office talks about 
newspaper work we had long decided that the 
only way to make money and reputation was 



NEWSPAPEE MAN 51 

to own a paper — ^work for oneself instead of for 
wages. There was nothing in reporting. That 
was amply demonstrated by the fact that two 
such colossal geniuses as my partner and my- 
self were working for twelve dollars a week 
apiece — fnlly as much as we were worth, by 
the way — and one or two others on the staff, 
not half so good, were getting the monumental 
wages of fifteen and seventeen dollars. The 
difference between twelve dollars a week and 
fifteen, when either sum is the total income, is 
greater than may appear to the casual reader. 
That extra three dollars meant many things that 
were unattainable when it did not come in on 
payday. With a daily paper of our own in a 
flourishing city, we figured we could easily earn 
a hundred dollars a week, which meant fifty 
dollars each; and fifty dollars was as much as 
the managing editor received — a plutocrat who 
belonged to clubs and rode in cabs, smoked two- 
for-a-quarter cigars and had several suits of 
clothes. 

Tad — ^who was my partner — and I talked until 



52 THE MAKING OF A 

daylight about the plan. He had had the idea 
for some time, for an nncle, or a cousin, or a 
relation of some kind of his, had a paper in a 
small Western city that he wanted to sell so he 
could resume the practice of law. Tad out- 
lined the scheme to me. He was to get a few 
days off, go out to the city, see the uncle, look 
over the proposition and come back and report. 
He was sure his relative would give him a rock- 
bottom price and make easy terms. Also, he 
was sure his relative would be fair and square, 
and that this was the greatest journalistic open- 
ing for two bright young men — ^without much 
capital but with a capacity for work — in the 
country. I thought so too. Neither of us knew 
a single thing about any other opening in any 
other city. Nor did we look for any. We felt 
this was a providential offering for escape from 
the bondage in which we were held, and we 
scraped together enough money to buy Tad a 
railroad ticket — out and back — and get him a 
berth each way and his meals. It didn't take 
a great deal of money, but we had a hard time 



NEWSPAPER MAN 53* 

gathering it. As I remember it, we borrowed 
about all the available capital of our associates 
and then had to coax the cashier to advance us 
five dollars each on our salaries, which was a 
good deal of a task and took some very fluent 
and impressive reasons. 

Tad left one Tuesday night and I stayed on 
at work, walking round in a sort of a rose- 
colored dream and seeing myself a great editor 
in a great state. I was to be the editor and Tad 
was to run the business end. Our capacities for 
these various employments were about equal. 
I had been a reporter in a small city for less 
than a year, and he had graduated from college 
with the idea of studying medicine. Neither one 
of us knew a bill payable from a passport, and 
our knowledge of the politics and other local 
complications of the place we intended to make 
our home was exceedingly vague. I was not 
yet nineteen and he was a shade over twenty- 
one — a powerful combination! 

Tad said the reason he wanted me to go inta 
partnership with him was because of my facility 



54 THE MAKING OF A 

for making friends, which gave me a jolt. I 
supposed this opportunity had sought me out 
because of my highly developed editorial capac- 
ity. However, I was so anxious to show what 
I could do that I swallowed even that and waited 
impatiently for his return, occupying my spare 
time with plans for running the paper. I could 
see many places where our own paper's methods 
were deficient and privately I knew the city 
editor was a dub — and I had my doubts about 
the managing editor. Our editor was the man 
I tied to. He could put out a *'You-lie-you-vil- 
lain-you-lie!^' editorial, showing how any per- 
son who questioned the policies of the Repub- 
lican party, whether in Washington or the fifth 
precinct of the Third Ward, or any of the lead- 
ers, was a perjured assassin of character; and 
I read his editorial articles avidly. 

The days dragged along until the end of the 
week. Then I had a telegram from Tad saying 
he would be in that night. I was at the station 
to meet him, burning with eagerness to hear his 
Teport. I knew all the station people and had 



NEWSPAPEE MAN 55 

no difficulty in getting into the trainshed. Tad 
looked very important as lie came from his car. 

^^What Inckr' I asked. 

'*Great!'' he said. 

'^Can we get it?" 

Could we get it? Oh! — the pathos of that 
question ! 

^^Yep!'' 

That settled it. I was to be a great editor. 
I felt like throwing up my hat and spending 
the last quarter I had for a telegram to my 
mother. I didn't, though I borrowed a stamp 
and wrote her, and used the quarter for sand- 
wiches in the place where Tad and I retired to 
talk it over. He was stone broke. Indeed, he 
had lived on a nickel that day, getting a bag 
of peanuts at a station down the road and eating 
a few of those every time the dining-car waiter 
came through with his various calls for meals 
in the dining car. The trip had cost more than 
we had planned. 

*^It's a bully chance !''he told me as we went 
at the sandwiches. **The city is a fine little 



56 THE MAKING OF A 

place and the paper is all right. My relative 
wants to go to another city to practice law, and 
he is willing to make a low price to ns for the 
paper. It is an evening paper. There is an- 
other paper there that has been going for twenty 
years, and a weekly paper ; but we can run them 
out in a short time when we get in there with 
our knowledge of the business. They are 
awfully slow and old-fashioned. The paper is 
four pages and hasn't been looked after. The 
plant isn't so big as it might be, but we will 
soon fix that. I like the town. It's a bully little 
place, and the country round it is prosperous." 

^^Has the paper been making any money 1" I 
asked incidentally, for we had talked for an 
hour of the various editorial reforms we pro- 
posed to institute. 

'*I guess so," he answered vaguely; *'for it 
has got a lot of advertising. It had almost two 
pages the day I was there. I suppose," he 
commented, '*that is where the money comes 
from." v,^ 

'*I suppose so," I answered, and then we 



NEWSPAPEE MAN 57 

went back to our editorial policy. Neither of us 
was interested in the advertising or circulation, 
though that was to be Tad's end of it. We 
talked a long time about the style of the firm — 
a most important feature — and argued whether 
his name or mine should come first. Finally 
we settled it by pitching a penny. I won. My 
name was to be first and his was to follow the 
^^and," which firm name was to be followed by 
the words, ^^Sole Editors and Proprietors." 

We stayed there until they shut the place. 
As we were walking up the street it occurred 
to me to ask how much the paper would cost. 
That part of it had been given little consider- 
ation. The main thing was to find out whether 
the proprietor would condescend to sell to us. 

'^What does he want for the outfit r' I asked 
in an off-hand way. 

*' Twenty-five hundred dollars." 

Twenty-five hundred dollars! I stopped in 
the street and looked blankly at Tad. Where 
would we. get twenty-five hundred dollars 1 For 
the first time it appealed to me that money must 



58 THE MAKING OF A 

change hands in a transaction of this kind. I 
hadn't thought of that part of it before. 

'^Twenty-five hundred dollars!" I shouted. 
''Why not twenty-five million? Where can we 
get twenty-five hundred dollars!" 

"Oh," reassured Tad, "it isn't all in cash. 
He will sell it to us for five hundred dollars 
down and take a mortgage for the rest." 

I breathed more easily — though five hundred 
dollars was more money than I had ever seen 
at one time in my life. 

"Well," I said grandly, "we'll take it.'^ 

"Sure!" Tad replied, and we parted to go 
to our rooms. I walked down to the office and 
went up to the local room. Two of the boys 
were on the long watch and the rest had gone. 
They were reading the last revises. How I 
pitied them — slaves; mere cogs in a great 
wheel ! While I — ^I was a Great Editor ! 



NEWSPAPER MAN 59 



CHAPTER VII 

Next day we went into the financial end a lit- 
tle. We thought if we got two hundred and fifty 
dollars each to make up the &ve hundred, and 
a hundred each for expenses and railroad fare 
and money to have on hand until we could be- 
gin to collect on the advertising, we could get 
along. So we started out to raise the three hun- 
dred and fifty dollars each. It was hard work. 
At the end of two days we wired our benefactor 
we thought two hundred and fifty dollars would 
be enough — and two hundred and fifty dollars 
more at the end of a month. He sent back a 
**rush" telegram saying that would be all right. 
This seemed very kind of him. We felt under 
obligations. We never had a suspicion that his 
haste might mean anything else but a desire 
to help two bright young chaps make a start 
for themselves. 



60 THE MAKING OF A 

I decided to get three hundred dollars if I 
could. I soon discovered that three hundred 
dollars is a mighty sight easier to say and to 
write than to get — an experience common to 
everybody who has needed that much money. 
My rich friends all had excuses. They couldn't 
quite see the proposition in the bright light I 
did. Finally I turned to a source that had never 
failed me in times of dire necessity and the 
money came, with a blessing. That three hun- 
dred dollars was the greatest amount of money 
I had ever had at one time. It seemed like a 
fortune. It was a fortune, for with it I was to 
grab the world and shake from it fame and 
wealth and power. Tad got some money. I 
forget how much — ^but some. Then we both 
resigned, giving the customary week's notice, 
and wrote to our benefactor that we would take 
over the paper on a certain date — about a fort- 
night ahead. 

I left for the seat of my future operations 
one raw night in March at ten o'clock. The 
boys came down to see me off. That afternoon 



NEWSPAPER MAN 61 

one of the city papers had printed a story of 
the venture. The first line of the head was: 
^^ Reporters Become Proprietors/' It was a 
fine send-off. I have the clipping yet. The 
editor and the managing editor had wished me 
luck, but had expressed chilling doubts of the 
success of the venture. The boys of the local 
staff were frankly envious. They thought it was 
great. 

It was the first long railroad journey I had 
ever taken and the first time I had ever been 
in a sleeping car. I watched the other pas- 
sengers to see how they went to bed and finally 
turned in. I had the joint capital of the firm, 
with the exception of enough to bring Tad out 
a few days later, pinned in the inside pocket 
of my vest. I wore my vest to bed — an unneces- 
sary precaution, for I was so excited I didn't 
sleep a wink, but tossed about all night and 
looked out the windows as we stopped at the 
stations. Those stops that night are literally 
burned into my memory. I can call the stations 
as they occurred until this day ; and every time 



62 THE MAKING OF A 

I ride on that road, wkich I have done a hun- 
dred times since, I look out at those places and 
that night ride comes back vividly. I can tell 
the railroad peculiarities of every station we 
stopped at. Some have new station buildings 
now, but some have not — and I know them all. 
The train crawled. I was anxious to get at 
the work of being the architect of my own for- 
tune. When we got to the flat country it made 
me a bit homesick. I was used to hills and val- 
leys. It seemed so bare and depressing. It 
was a twenty-four-hour journey and the train 
was more than an hour late, so it was nearly 
midnight when the porter told me it was time 
for me to get off. "We pulled into a rather pre- 
tentious station and the porter took my bag and 
set it down outside. It was blowing a gale of 
half sleet and half snow. A hack or two and a 
couple of hotel busses stood near the station. 
I took the bus for the hotel Tad had said was 
near our office and rode up, peering out through 
the steaming windows to try and see something 
of the place. I noticed the street lamps were 



NEWSPAPER MAN 63 

dim and far apart and that there were few lights 
in the houses. Finally the driver turned into a 
paved street and rattled up in front of a big, 
square, slate-colored place he said was the ho- 
tel. I was cold and somewhat discouraged. My 
entry to the scene of my future triumphs lacked 
many of the features I had pictured to myself. 

Five or six men and a dozen women were 
sitting around a big stove in the middle of the 
office. I registered and the clerk said he would 
have a room for me as soon as the troupe that 
had played there that night left. They were 
going out on the one o 'clock train, he said. Part 
of them were in the room then, gathered around 
the stove. I pulled up a chair next to a little, 
black-eyed, swarthy woman. 

She looked at me curiously. 

*^You leev here?" she asked. 

^^No," I replied; ^^but I expect to.^' 

^^God help you!'^ she said, patting my arm 
in a motherly way. 

^^Whyr' I asked. ^^ What's the matter with 
this placer' 



64 THE MAKING OF A 

Then she told me she was the premiere 
danseuse of the company that had played there 
that night. They had a spectacular show, with 
a small ballet in it. Business had been very 
bad — not only there but elsewhere. The com- 
pany was about to break up. She had walked 
about the city. It did not impress her, and the 
fact that the residents had refused to come out 
and see one of the world ^s greatest dancers made 
it certain to her that the place was of no con- 
sequence. She asked me all about myself and 
I told her. 

' ' Too bad ! ' ' she said. ^ ' Too bad^ — and such a 
nice young man ! ' ' 

"We talked some more. She had been having 
an incredibly hard time — getting no salary and 
dancing before unresponsive audiences. If she 
could only get back to New York! Presently 
the porter bawled out the train and the actors 
and actresses bundled on their wraps and 
crowded into the omnibus. The little premiere 
patted me on the shoulder again. **Keep 
enough to get home with,'' she whispered. 



NEWSPAPER MAN 65 

''Good-bye and good luck!" I didn't know 
it then, but that was golden advice. She waved 
her hand at me as she stepped into the omnibus. 
The driver whipped up and the omnibus rattled 
away. I have often wondered whether she got 
back to New York — and how. I never heard 
of her after that^ 



S — Newspaper Man. 



66 THE MAKING OF A 



CHAPTEE Vm 

The morose niglit clerk showed me up to my 
room. It was cold and cheerless. I crawled into 
bed, but I didn't sleep any that night. I was 
homesick. All my ideas of becoming a great 
editor had vanished. I wished I was back on 
the local staff. I could see the boys reading 
proof and hear them roasting everybody on the 
sheet. I could smell the scorched matrices from 
the stereotyping room ; see the foreman cutting 
the copy into short takes to hurry up the last 
local and telegraph; could hear the city editor 
fighting for space and see the foreman grimly 
shoving galleys of type into the left-over rack. 
I smelt the hot, inky odor from the pressroom 
and could hear the whirring of the presses. I 
was the most homesick young man in the United 
States ! 

Next morning, before I had breakfast, the 



NEWSPAPER MAN 67 

man who was selling the paper came around 
to the hotel. He was a tall, cadaverous man, 
with a sweeping black mustache and a furtive 
eye. He was very cordial. He sat with me at 
breakfast and told me how great the opportunity 
was. The only thing that led him to sell was 
his love for Tad, whom he wanted to see started 
in life, and the fact that his profession — the 
law — was calling for him. He was anxious to 
close the deal and — did I have the two hundred 
and fifty dollars with me? I cheered up a lot 
under his talk and gave him the money, signing 
some kind of a paper he had prepared. Appar- 
ently it made no difference to him that I was 
a minor and that my signature was of no con- 
sequence legally, and I never thought of that 
phase of the transaction. What he wanted was 
the two-fifty. 

He told me how to get to the office, and ex- 
cused himself. Later, I learned that he took 
the first train out of town, leaving me to intro- 
duce myself to the employes as one of the new 
**sole editors and proprietors." He said John, 



68 THE MAKING OF A 

the city editor, would explain it all to me. I 
was not suspicions. It seemed all right. So, 
after paying over the money, I bade him good- 
bye and went to the office. 

The place wasn't half a block from the hotel. 
The former owner said I couldn't miss it. I 
did, though ; and I asked a man where the office 
of the "Evening Eagle" was. 

"Eight there," he said, pointing to a one- 
story wooden building that sat with a gable end 
to the street and was unpainted, dilapidated 
and not much larger than our woodshed at home. 
I stood and stared at it. I had expected to find 
the paper housed in a brick building of some 
kind, at least. Still, I remembered Tad had said 
the plant wasn't much and that one of the first 
things to do, after the money began to come 
in under our powerful editorial and business 
stimulus, was to buy some new presses and type 
and fix up a business office. I went into 
the building. It was divided into three 
parts by partitions. In one room there were 
an old, flat-topped desk and a tall desk 



NEWSPAPER MAN 69 

such as bookkeepers use. In the other room 
there were another desk and a big pile of adver- 
tising electrotypes and a lot of similar junk in 
heaps on the floor. The composing room was 
in the rear. It had three or four sets of type 
cases, a proof press, some galley racks and some 
other furniture. One man was setting type. 
He was a small, unshaven man, who chewed 
tobacco and wore a very dirty collar. 

'^Hellol^'hesaid. 

' ^ Hello !'^ I replied. 

''"Want something r' 

*^I am one of the new proprietors,^^ I in- 
formed him with as much dignity as I could 
coromand. In reality, instead of feeling digni- 
fied, I felt like crying. It was all so different 
from what I had pictured it. 

He laughed — one of those laughs that make 
you want to kill the man who laughs! 

I itched to slaughter him — but I didn't. He 
was the only person, apparently, from whom I 
could get any information. 

He looked at me pityingly. 



70 THE MAKING OF A 

''You don't say!" lie said. ''Well, I'm 
damned glad to see you, for if we're going to 
get this rag out to-day we've got to have some 
copy pretty quick." 

"Are you the only person who works here!" 
I asked him. "Where is the city editor and 
where are the reporters!" 

He laughed again. "He'll be in pretty 
quick," he replied. "He's gone down to the 
depot to see if he can't get some of his back 
wages from the old boss." 

I walked out in the other room, sat down in 
a rickety chair. and looked round. It was sick- 
ening! Still, I was in for it; and I took some 
paper, sharpened a pencil and wrote a long 
editorial article which I headed "Salutatory!" 
I told the printer to use triple leads, so it would 
look more important and also take up more 
space. In this editorial article I informed the 
citizens of the city of the change of ownership ; 
told of the great capabilities of the new owners ; 
put them squarely on the platform of being for 
a bigger, better and busier town; promised to 



NEWSPAPER MAN 71 

fight all municipal and political graft; to bring 
about much-needed improvements; to hew to 
the line and let the chips fall where they might ; 
to support all worthy local enterprises; to be 
unflinchingly independent in politics, choosing 
for support none but the best candidates — and 
a lot of similar flubdub. I remarked in capital 
letters that we had come to stay, had invested 
our capital here because we believed in the 
glorious future of the town, and solicited sup- 
port for our great enterprise from all citizens, 
stating we would play no favorites but would 
give the citizens a bright, newsy paper ; in fact, 
I said we intended — and had the capital to carry 
out the intention — to make this one of the lead- 
ing papers of the state and a lasting credit to 
the city. 

As I was writing, a man came in. He was a 
rather shabby man, with a heavy black mus- 
tache, and carried an old, faded umbrella, which 
he gripped tightly in his hand. 

He stood uneasily and looked at me. 

**What is it?" I asked, rather peremptorily. 



72 THE MAKING OF A 

*^ Nothing,'' he said — ^^ nothing much. Only 
I'm the editorial staff." 

^Mohn!" shouted the printer — *^John — dod- 
gast you! — ^where's your local?'' 

'^ Great Scott!'' I thought. '^That printer 
seems to be boss round here. I'll soon change 
that." 

**A11 right, Chet," John replied. '^All right. 
I'll get right at it. Only this man is using my 
desk." 

*^I'm the new editor," I said, again drawing 
heavily on my reserve stock of dignity. 

John looked at me the same way the printer 
had. Then he faltered: 

*^Am I discharged?" 

Fancy a man asking me if he was discharged ! 
Fancy my having the power to discharge any 
one ! 

^^No, my man," I said patronizingly; **you 
are not discharged. I shall keep you on until 
I see what you can do. Of course, if you 
prove your worth I shall be glad to retain 
you. At present any arrangement I may 



NEWSPAPEE MAN 73 

make with you is but temporary. I must try 
you out/' 

I have thought for many years since that mo- 
ment that John should have batted me over the 
head with his umbrella. I deserved it, for I soon 
found John and that printer were the only real 
friends I had in that state. John's salary, I may 
say, was eight dollars a week under the old 
regime. 

**John,'' squeaked the printer, **did you get 
any dough out of the old man!*' 

John hurried into the composing room and 
whispered to the printer. 

'^All right,'' I heard the printer say; ^^we'll 
tap him." 

John came back to the desk where I was sit- 
ting. 

**If you don't mind," he said meekly, ^'I'll 
write up what local I've got. We go to press 
at four 'clock. ' ' 

^^Four o'clock!" I shouted. ^^Do you mean 
to say you print only one edition in the after- 
noon?" 



74 THE MAKING OF A 

^^WeVe always found one enough!'' And 
John grinned a little. 

^^My dear sir," I said in my most important 
manner, '^that will be changed. We intend to 
give the people of this city an up-to-date after- 
noon newspaper. We shall have a noon edition, 
a home edition and a street edition, and issue 
extras whenever the news is worth one." 

^^Well," said John, ^* that's all right; but you 
can't start to-day." 

^'Whynotr' 

*' There ain't enough paper on hand for the 
edition, for one thing, and the telegraph won't 
be here in time for a noon edition." 

*' Telegraph won't be here in time!" I par- 
roted blankly. ^'Why not? Isn't the telegraph 
coming in all the time 1 ' ' 

' ^ It comes in by express at two o 'clock, ' ' said 
John simply. 

^^By express !" I was dumfounded. We had 
the full press report back in the old shop and 
two specials — to say nothing of cords of stuff 
from special correspondents. 



NEWSPAPEE MAN 75 

*^Yes/' explained John. ^*Oiir telegraph is 
six columns of plate matter sent in from Chi- 
cago every morning by express. If the train is 
late we have to hold the paper until it comes. 
Once there was a wreck and we couldn't get it 
out that day at all ! ' ^ 

^*Let me see yesterday's paper," I demanded. 

John got one. It was a six-column sheet of 
four pages. On the first page there were two 
columns of plate matter; then, in the middle, 
two columns of display advertising; and, to 
finish up the page, two more columns of plate 
telegraph matter. There was a column of wishy- 
washy editorial matter on the second page and 
two or three columns of plate matter, including 
the two columns of telegraph left oif the first 
page, and some display advertising. The third 
page had two columns of local news, set in big 
type, and advertising; and the last page was 
mostly advertising of the type called ^'foreign" 
— that is, it was patent-medicine advertising and 
that sort of stuff, and not local advertising. 
From a casual inspection, judging from the 



76 THE MAKING OF A 

amount of advertising carried, the paper was 
prosperous if any money at all was being taken 
in for it. 

^'I don't like that," I said to John, pointing 
to the two columns of advertising on the first 
page. *^I shall put that stuff back in the inside 
of the paper. ' ' 

'^I wouldn't, if I were you,'^ John advised. 
^ ' That 's the only cash advertising we have and 
we have to give them that position to get the 
money.'' 

*^The only cash advertising !' ' I exclaimed. 
**"What, in Heaven's name, is the rest of this 
stufei" 

^^I've got to get up my local," said John, and 
sat down at the desk. 



NEWSPAPER MAN 77 



CHAPTER IX 

I studied the paper. It was a poor thing. 
The telegraph news was reasonably fresh, but 
it humiliated me to think it was cast in plate, 
shipped from Chicago by express instead of com- 
ing in over our own wire. Still, I reflected, it 
would cost a heap to get wire service and entail 
the employment of a lot of printers to set the 
stuff. So I resolved not to cut it off until Tad 
came, at any rate, and we could talk over wire 
arrangements and buy a suitable service from 
the press association. The local news was un- 
speakable. It was mostly personal items about 
people who took the trains in the morning, a 
little sloppy society, a rank story about a meet- 
ing of the common council and some stuff about 
a church fair. ^^We'll liven that up,'' I said 
grimly. 

John turned in his local. Meantime another 



78 THE MAKING OF A 

frowsy printer had come in and taken a case. 
I found out that the pressman was not due until 
three o'clock, that we had an arrangement 
whereby we bought our power from a near-by 
factory and that our edition the afternoon be- 
fore was four hundred copies, from which the 
revenue was considerably less than two dollars. 
Both Tad and I had forgotten to ask what the 
circulation was. Still, that made no difference, 
for we would make the paper so much better 
than it had been the people would just have to 
buy it. 

It took some tall hustling to get even that 
small grist of matter put into type. John's 
copy made me writhe and I edited it as much 
as I dared. Chet, the printer, told me if I cut 
out much of it we wouldn't have anything to fill 
with unless we shoved in some m.ore dead ads. 

''Dead ads?" I asked. ''What are dead 



Chet took a copy of the paper of the previous 
afternoon and swept his hand comprehensively 
over the entire back page and most of the third 



NEWSPAPER MAN 79 

page, where there was so brave a showing of 
patent-medicine advertising. 

*^ Them's dead ads/' he said. 

' * What do you mean ? ' ' 

He laughed again. 

^'1 mean themes ads that the contracts has 
run out for, and we 've bin runnin ' them because 
it was cheaper to use them than set type." 

^^Do you mean that no money is to be paid 
for that advertising?" I gasped. 

**Not a cent," he said. ^^ Gimme the copy 
for the rest of that salutatory of yours." 

That was a facer. I sat down and read proof 
on the salutatory; but it was a bad job of 
proofreading. I could see nothing but ^'dead 
ads" in every line instead of the highfalutin 
language I had so confidently written a short 
time before. 

** Where's the telegraph?" I asked John about 
two o'clock. 

**Down at the express office." 

**Why don^t they deliver it?" 

**Well, you see," said John, ** we've been 



80 THE MAKING OF A 

kind of slow payin' for that stuff and they've 
gone to sending it C. 0. D.'' 

^^How much is itf" 

John told me and I gave him the money. 
Presently an expressman came in witfi a long, 
narrow box with a sliding cover. In it were 
six plates, each a column wide, of assorted tele- 
graph news. Chet, who, I discovered was fore- 
man as well as devil, took the six plates, handed 
me the proof sheet of the plates that were in the 
box and asked me how I wanted it. There were 
three columns with display heads at the top and 
three columns with two-line heads. Thus a big 
head could be placed in the first, third and fifth 
or sixth columns, and the other columns sand- 
wiched in between. This slovenly make-up 
jarred me, but there was nothing else to do. 
^^ Anyhow," I thought, *^they will all read the 
salutatory. ' ' And if I continued the two-column 
advertisement in the middle of the page I could 
have a head on the first column and one on the 
sixth, and that would make a fairly presentable 
page. I considered that for quite a time. Then 



NEWSPAPER MAN 81 

I told Chet to put the first-page advertising on 
the inside. 

^^ You 11 lose it/' Chet said. 

*'A11 right," I replied; ^^then we'll get some 
more." 

Chet laughed again. 

After much trouble we got the paper to press. 
Half a dozen small boys came around about 
four o 'clock and bought a few copies. I took in 
seventeen cents, which meant I sold thirty-four 
copies to the boys. That constituted our street 
sale that day, for nobody evinced enough inter- 
est in our enterprise to come in and get a 
paper — nor did any of the boys come back for 
more. 

The mail came in with a liberal number of 
exchanges and a lively letter from Tad. I 
clipped a little miscellany, wrote two or three 
editorials on broad, general topics and gave 
them to Chet^ — and sat down to figure out what 
had happened. 

I couldn't. I felt we had been swindled, but 
I didn't know enough about it yet to point out 

6 — Newspaper Man. 



S2 THE MAKING OF A 

where. As I was sitting there Chet and John 
came in. 

**Boss," said Chet, **can we have a little 
money 1 ' ' 

''How mnchf'' I asked. 

''A couple of dollars to get something for the 
Jiouse.'^ 

I gave each of them two dollars and they left. 
I found a key in the door and locked it. Then 
I walked down to the telegraph office and wired 
io Tad : ' ' Hurry up and get out here. We have 
been buncoed !'' 

That night I received a telegram from Tad: 
^'I shall be there day after to-morrow. Cheer 
up ! It 's all right. ' ' 

I was so tired that night that even my fears 
could not keep me awake ; and when I rose next 
morning and had my breakfast I was in better 
spirits. ''I won't quit/' I said. ''I'll fight this 
out somehow." 

I went over to the office early and gave John 
some assignments that opened his eyes. One 
was to go to the hotels and get a list of hotel 



NEWSPAPER MAN 83 

arrivals. John turned in this list and I printed 
it. Next day he came in with a list of notables 
from all over. 

* ' Get bnsy, John ! " I shouted. * * If these peo- 
ple are all here get out and interview them. 
Ask them how they like the town. Get some- 
thing out of them and we'll have a few live lines 
in the sheet, anyhow.'' 

John hurried out, but came back in half an 
hour looking very sheepish. ^'It was a joke," 
he said — ^^they wrote them names on the regis- 
ter to fool us!" 

I had to get the telegraph out of the express 
office that second afternoon just as I had on the 
first. Moreover, the man who had the two- 
column advertisement on the first page came in 
and said unless he could have that position he 
would take his advertisement out. **Give it to 
him," advised Chet — and I did. We needed 
the money; though when I inquired I found he 
had that commanding position in that great 
organ of public opinion for less than two dol- 
lars a day ! 



84 THE MAKING OF A 

I took in twenty-four cents from the street 
boys that afternoon and had an order or two 
from the carrier rontes. Also, I wrapped up 
the mail myself and sent the papers over to the 
post-office. Nobody had done that on my first 
afternoon, but I received no protests. Appar- 
ently nobody cared whether the ''Evening 
Eagle" came out or not. Along about five 
o'clock Chet came in and asked for a dollar. 

''Chet,'' I said, ''what sort of a game is this 
I am up against, anyhow?'^ 

"Well,'' said Chet, "I'll tell you. I've bin 
workin' along here for a couple of months and 
gettin' a dollar or so at a time, an' John's bin 
doin' the same thing. This here paper was 
pretty fair one time, but the feller that started 
it sold out to the man who sold it to you an' 
moved to another town. This here is a Eepub- 
lican community and the other paper's bin here 
for years, an' is a good, reliable paper, with a 
telegraph report by wire, and sticks to the Re- 
publican party. They was room enough here 
for another paper; but the man that just had 



NEWSPAPER MAN 85 

it threw this here one away from bein' an inde- 
pendent paper an' made it prohibition. Now, 
that don't go in this here town. He was nasty, 
too; and he put in a lot of mean stuff about 
our citizens. 

^^Nacherally the * Eagle' lost circulation; an^ 
he was a lawyer an' didn't know no thin' about 
newspapers, anyhow. The sheriff's bin jist two 
jumps behind us for two months. Then the 
editor gets you fellers on the string and sells 
to you. It was a shame. He rigged up a plant 
on you. He showed that feller that came out 
here fake contracts and run the paper full of 
dead advertising and buncoed him right smart. 
He was at the end of his string, an' he knew 
it; an' he jumped the town with whatever 
money you gave him. Everything here's mort- 
gaged an' we owe everybody in town. The 
paper ain't worth a damn — an' never has bin; 
and you're plumb up against it!" 

Then Chet took the paper and showed me in 
detail just how we had been flim-flammed. As 
nearly as I could make it out, the paper car- 



86 THE MAKING OP A 

ried about twenty dollars' worth of live adver- 
tising a day, with all the rest worthless; and 
there were no contracts outstanding. We were 
in debt to the paper house and could only get 
paper by paying from day to day. Of course 
I didn't purpose to pay off the old debts; but 
I didn't Imow whether Tad had bought the insti- 
tution, debts and all, or not. I soon found out. 
He had. 



NEWSPAPER MAN 87 



CHAPTER X 

Tad came in that night and I went down to 
meet him. He got jauntily off the train, carry- 
ing a guitar-case in his hand. 

*^ What's thatr' I asked. 

'^My guitar/' he answered. '*I thought we 
might like a little music of an evening until we 
get acquainted around town.'' 

'^Fine idea," I said. ^' Great! Unstrap it 
and play the Spanish Fandango now." 

^^What for?" he asked in amazement. 

*^0h, nothing," I said; ^^but I sort of need 
music at this juncture." 

"What's biting you!" 

"Nothing — nothing at all, except that we're 
the two biggest suckers on the inhabited globe." 

Tad dropped his guitar. 

"What's the matter? Isn't everything all 
right?" 



88 THE MAKING OF A 

'*Tad, I said, ^'this is no place to break the 
news to you. Let me lead you to the seclusion 
of our boarding house. Have you got any 
more money?" 

Tad looked at me blankly. 

^*More money?" he asked. '*Do you think 
I'm John D. Rockefeller? I gave you all the 
money I could get. What's become of it? IVe 
only a few dollars in my pocket." 

**Come on!" I said. firmly. ^^Come on, be- 
fore I kill you on the spot! What do we want 
with more money? Why, dad blame you, we 
want all the money in the world to pull this 
thing your benignant relative sold to us out 
of the hole." 

Tad said nothing. As we walked up the street 
I suggested: 

*^Play a little something on your guitar, Tad. 
A little music will be fine while we are getting 
acquainted. ' ' 

**Shut up," he retorted savagely, ''or I'll 
break it over your head!" 

' ' That 's right, ' ' 1 replied. * ' My head is thick 



NEWSPAPER MAN 89 

enough to break anything on, or I wouldn't be 
here.'' 

Thare was no more conversation until we 
reached the room I had rented. I lighted a 
cigar a man had given me who wanted a two- 
column puff of his candidacy for assessor 
printed for nothing, and Tad sat on the bed 
and glowered. 

^^What is it!" he finally said. ^^Get it out 
of your system. What's wrong f 

^'What's wrong?" I shouted. ^^Hear him 
babble! AYhat's wrong? Why, you fair-haired 
galoot, everything is wrong. Here, we've quit 
our jobs and come away out here and given a 
relative of yours — a dear, kind, honest relative 
of yours — who wanted to see you get a start in 
the world, two hundred and fifty dollars of good 
money and tied ourselves up for more than two 
thousand more, for a rag of a sheet that isn't 
worth two hundred and fifty cents." 

'^You must be mistaken," insisted Tad. 

** Mistaken!" I roared — ^^when the total cash 
receipts of the place for the first four days are 



90 THE MAKING OF A 

less than a dollar; when the total advertising 
isn't worth twenty dollars a day and most of 
that weVe got to take out in trade; when not 
a line of new advertising can be secured in the 
place, for they wouldn't advertise with us if we 
gave it to them; when the paper has been on 
the wrong side of everything for the last three 
years ; when we 've got only four hundred circu- 
lation, and two hundred of that compli- 
mentary!" I stopped and laughed. 

**What are you laughing at?" asked Tad. 

^*I was laughing to think of anybody being 
complimented by getting that sheet!" 

^*But," said Tad, ignoring the remark, **it 
carried a lot of advertising when I saw it; and 
he told me it was making good money. ' ' 

''Surely it carried a lot of advertising when 
you saw it, but it was dead advertising. Do 
you get that! Dead advertising! It was adver- 
tising that had been paid for and had run out, 
and he was carrying it for nothing, because that 
was cheaper than setting up stuff to fill the 
space. It isn't worth a nickel a year to us! 



NEWSPAPER MAN 91 

And all those contracts lie showed you had ex- 
pired. And the plant isn't worth forty dollars 
— and we don't own it anyhow, for it's mort- 
gaged. And we have to buy paper day by 
day and take the telegraph boiler-plate out of 
hock each afternoon before we can get the paper 
on the rickety old press. And our total cash 
capital is less than seventy-five dollars — and 
we can 't raise another cent in this world I And 
our force consists of two bum printers and an 
editorial statf that doesn't know its name. And 
they will shut off our power unless we pay up 
before the end of the week. And the rent on 
the shack where we are is due and we are likely 
to be evicted unless we can stave that otf. 

And But what's the use! Play something 

on your guitar, Tad. We need a little music, 
don't you think I" 

^'What shall I play?" asked Tad, who sat 
blinking at me. 

''Oh," I said, ''play the Dead March in Saul! 
That'll about hit things off, I reckon." 

What is a roaring comedy now was a fearful 



92 THE MAKING OF A 

tragedy then. We sat in our room and looked 
at one anoUaer. There was nothing to say. If 
we had had as much business sense as a pair 
of three-year-old twins we never should have 
been in that ^; but neither of us had a grain 
of that useful — not to say essential — ^under- 
standing. We were a pair of enthusiastic young 
theorists; and at that moment not only our 
doll but every doll in the world was stuffed with 
sawdust 

We discussed the situation. Every plan we 
laid ran hard against the same stone wall. It 
all resolved itself to the question of money. If 
we had money we could scrabble along for a 
time. Without money we were helpless; and 
there wasn't a place in the world where I could 
get another dollar. Tad was in the same case. 
So we shook out our pockets. We had less than 
a hundred dollars between us, and there were 
bills to be paid and other expenses to be met — 
to say nothing of wages for our small staif. 

^^ Let's go to bed/' said Tad. 

There was no good reason for staying up, so 



NEWSPAPER MAN 93 

we went to bed ; and when we were dressing in 
the morning Tad evolved a plan. It was this: 
We were to go down to the office, look into the 
situation thoroughly, get all the information we 
could from Chet and John; then follow the 
man who sold ns the paper to the city he was 
to practice law in and ask him to take the paper 
back — and give us at least enough of our money 
for railroad fares to the East. That cheered 
us. We thought if we put the case fairly and 
squarely up to the former proprietor he surely 
would be willing to be fair and square himself. 
That, I may say, was the final e^H^dence of the 
fact that neither of us was fit to be at large 
in the world without a guardian. 

We fixed up the paper for the day, writing 
some perfunctory editorial articles and handing 
John's local news to Chet without even reading 
it. Then we called Chet and John in and asked 
them how about it. John hadn't said much up 
to that time, but he unbosomed himself then. 
He told how he hadn't been getting his eight 
dollars a week regularly; how the paper had 



94 THE MAKING OF A 

been milked until the last dollar had been ex- 
tracted; how local advertising contracts or 
agreements had been made for long terms at 
extremely low rates even for so poor a medium, 
in consideration of payment in advance, and 
how we were stuck with those agreements and 
there could be no money coming in for weeks; 
how dead advertising had been carried along; 
and how the paper man and the plate man and 
the power man and the ink man, and all the rest, 
had been paid from day to day or staved off 
if possible. In short, he showed us that we had 
bought an entirely worthless property and that 
if we had no money we might as well quit. 



NEWSPAPER MAN 95 



CHAPTER XI 

We both were confident we could pull out if 
we had two or three thousand dollars ; but we 
might just as well have needed two or three 
millions. I didn't know how to get any money, 
nor did my partner. We had trouble enough 
scraping together the little first payment. So 
there we were! We put all these facts in as 
presentable shape as possible and I started for 
the city where the man who sold us the paper 
was living. The place was away up north and 
there had been a heavy fall of snow. We de- 
cided it would be wise to go as cheaply as pos- 
sible — and I went in a day coach. The weather 
was bitterly cold and so was the day coach. 
Along about three o'clock in the morning they 
hustled me out at a junction and told me the 
train I wanted would be by at ^ve. I shivered 
round there until the train came along about 



96 THE MAKING OF A 

six, and at noon I got to my destination. It so 
happened a merchant in that town was originally 
from my home village and I went to see him 
and asked him for the name of a good lawyer. 
He told me where to go. 

I laid my case before the lawyer. We had 
heard of some sort of a legal proceeding called 
a capias; and I thought that was what I wanted. 
The lawyer listened gravely and after I had 
finished and suggested a capias — ^not knowing 
whether a capias was a body execution or a 
death warrant — the lawyer said: 

^^Very well; I can apply for such a writ. Of 
course you are prepared to furnish the neces- 
sary bond?" 

''Bond!'' I gasped. ''What sort of a bond?" 

"Why, in a proceeding of this sort it is neces- 
sary to furnish a bond to indemnify the person 
against whom the writ issues should the writ 
not be well taken." 

It may be I do not remember the legal term- 
inology correctly, but I do remember he wanted 
a bond; and I also remember vividly that I 



NEWSPAPEE MAN 97 

couldn't have furnished a bond for ^ye cents. 
That was a facer. 

*^ Can't we do it without a bond!" I asked. 

**No," he replied. 

^*Very well," I said; ^'I will go down to my 
hotel and arrange for the bond and call on you 
later in the day. I must wire my partner. ' ' 

As I was going out he coughed inquiringly. 
I turned. 

*^My retainer," he suggested suavely. 

* ' Oh, certainly, ' ' I said quite grandly. * * How 
much will be sufficient ? ' ' 

^^Well, about twenty-five dollars will do in 
the circumstances — though ordinarily I would 
ask a hundred. I feel a deep sympathy for you 
boys and think you have been shabbily treated ; 
so I shall not charge you much." 

Charge us much! He was then charging me 
about all I had. I took five five-dollar bills from 
my meager roll of money and handed them to 
him and he gave me a receipt. I have that re- 
ceipt yet. It was the only thing I brought home 
with me. 

7 — Newspaper Man. 



'98 THE MAKING OF A 

I stumbled out to the street, dazed. It had 
suddenly dawned on me that getting back our 
money and giving back the paper were not 
such simple problems as they had seemed to 
Tad and myself. Indeed, I had a glimmer we 
could do neither thing, which proved to be the 
case. I went to the hotel and asked about the 
trains. There was no way to get out until the 
next morning. So I hunted up the former pro- 
prietor. I found him in an office, surrounded 
I)y lawbooks. He wasn't busy and he was sur- 
prised to see me. I was overcome by my wrongs 
and cried out: ^^Give us back our money, you 
swindler ! That paper is no good and you sold 
it to us on false pretenses! You're a cheat!" 

He was a smooth and oily person, that lawyer. 
He half started from his chair as if to attack 
me. I hoped he would, for I knew I could whip 
him. He didn't, though. Instead, he sat back, 
smiled rather indulgently and said soothingly: 
'*Calm yourself, my dear boy. You are ex- 
cited. What is the matter f" 

I was gulping like a child when I sat down, 



NEWSPAPER MAN 99 

wild with rage and seeing red. I lialf formed 
a plan to throttle him and take the consequences. 
Then a feeling of my ntter helplessness came 
over me and I almost sobbed as I began my 
recital. 

He listened calmly. Then he began to talk. 
He told me we had bought the paper with our 
eyes open; that we were a couple of kids who 
expected to find as much in a small city as we 
had left behind us ; that running a daily paper 
in a small town was a precarious business at 
the best, and that we should have known it at 
the start ; that he sold on a caveat-emptor plan ; 
and that, being a lawyer, and familiar with the 
laws of the state, he had protected himself; 
that he would not give us our money back and 
would hold us to our bargain; and that if we 
did not fulfill our obligations he would proceed 
against us legally; and that, finally, if we had 
taken over a proposition like that, with only 
enough money to pay the first installment, we 
deserved to lose! And he wished me a very 
good day and invited me to begin any legal pro- 



100 THE MAKING OF A 

ceedings I saw fit at the earliest possible mo- 
ment. 

I can see him now as I saw him then — through 
a mist — sitting at his desk, emphasizing his 
points by tapping on the desk with a pencil and 
smiling at my great distress. 

I was bluffed out. I had nothing to say. I 
have often wondered since whether I should 
have jumped in and given him a licking or taken 
one. My conclusion is that I showed a little 
sense by keeping off, for I had but a few dollars 
and I was in a strange town. I didn't jump in. 
Instead I shouted incoherently and melodramat- 
ically something about getting even with him 
and stumbled out into the snow again. I sent 
a wire to Tad telling him I could do nothing, 
but to keep on getting the paper out until I got 
back. I arrived at the office on the evening of 
the next day, to find Tad sitting on the tall desk 
in the corner thrumming melancholy chords on 
his guitar. 

I told my story. We counted our money. 
There was less than twenty dollars between us. 



NEWSPAPER MAN 101 

My trip had cost almost twenty and the twenty- 
five to the lawyer had peeled ns down to almost 
nothing. Tad had been obliged to pay some- 
thing to the power man and to the rent man and 
to the paper man. Also, Chet and John had 
demanded a few dollars each, saying they would 
quit unless they got it. The other printer and 
the pressman hadn't been in. They didn't know 
how bad things were. We sat gloomily in the 
darkness. The ^ * Sole Editors and Proprietors ' ' 
had been depressed into a couple of heartsick, 
homesick, hopeless boys. 

^^ What '11 we do!" I asked finally. 

**What is there to do?" countered Tad de- 
jectedly. 

*^ Nothing." 

Tad played a few snatches of a serenade. 

* * Chop it ! " I shouted savagely, ^ ^ or I '11 kick 
that guitar into splinters." 

'^Oh, very well," said Tad; ^^but I always 
resort to music in times like these. It has a 
soothing effect." 

We both laughed. 



102 THE MAKING OF A 

' ^ Cheer up ! " I said. ' ' We '11 wiggle out some- 
liow. ' ' 

Then we talked it all over, canvassing every 
possible place where money might be secured, 
coming back each time to the disconcerting 
realization that neither of us could beg, borrow 
or steal a penny. 

*^ Let's give the blamed thing to John," sug- 
gested Tad. 

**What have you got against John?" I asked. 

There was more talk. Finally we went to 
our room and went to bed. In the morning 
we walked down to the office together. We had 
little to say, but we were thinking the same 
thing — that was how to quit. When we reached 
the office, the dingy office, with its pathetic 
equipment and its miserable prospects. Tad 
iurned to me and said: 

'^Let's quit." 

''All right," I replied — and that settled it. 
Then the boy in me came to the surface. I 
didn't know how we were going to quit, but I 
did know I was soon to be relieved of this load — 



NEWSPAPER MAN lOa 

and I was happy. Tad felt the same way. We 
kicked the door open and strode into the room. 
John was sitting at his desk, grinding out his 
local. Tad and I did a dance around the room ; 
and then, putting our arms on one another's 
shoulders, we sang, with fine barber-shop chords 
and close harmony effects : 

Round her neck she wore a purple ribbon — 

She wore it in the summertime and in the month of May.. 
And when they asked her why she wore the ribbon 
She said 'twas for her lover, far away! 
Far away — far away! 
Far away — far away! 
She wore it for her lover, far away! 

Then we came in strong with the trombone 
effect, * * Om-te-da-de ! ' ' and wound up with a 
breakdown : 

For round her neck she wore a purple ribbon — 
And she wore it for her lover, far away! 



104: THE MAKING OF A 



CHAPTER XII 

John jumped up and grabbed his umbrella 
and Chet came in with a column rule in his hand. 
They thought we had gone crazy. And so we 
had. We were both so delighted to get rid of 
the load that we danced and sang for ten or 
fifteen minutes. 

'* What's the matter!" cried Chet. 

*^The matter, Mr. Chester White, of Poland, 
China," yelled Tad, grabbing Chet by the shoul- 
ders and waltzing him round the room — ^^the 
matter is that this great palladium of the liber- 
ties and organ of the best thought of the com- 
munity is about to give up the ghost — quit, sus- 
pend, go out of business, die the death of a dog, 
and otherwise have its bright light extinguished. 
That 's what 's the matter ! ' ' And we pulled the 
astonished John and the amazed Chet into a 
circle with us and sang with exquisite tremolo 



NEWSPAPER MAN 105 

and chromatic variations: ^* Farewell! farewell, 
my own true love!^' 

** Gimme some paper!'' shouted Tad. 
' ' Gimme some paper, until I indite a few words 
of burning good-bye to this community ! ' ' And 
he wrote an editorial which he headed, ^^Vale- 
dictory," and which closed with this statement: 
'*If the people of this community remember us 
as long as we shall remember them they will 
erect a monument to our memory.'' 

*'What becomes of us?" quavered John. 

*^John," I said, ^^that isn't the important 
question. The important question is. What be- 
comes of us! You have a palatial home here, 
John, supported in regal style on your munifi- 
cent salary of eight dollars a week. Before we 
go, John, we shall pay you all we owe you — and 
probably more — money being no object to us 
at the present time. Be calm, John; be per- 
fectly calm. Undoubtedly your old boss will be 
back and he will continue as the editorial staff 
of this tribune of the people." 

Chet took the editorial copy. '^I was goin' 



b 



106 THE MAKING OF A 

to jump the burg, anyhow !'* he said. We told 
him to quadruple-lead the valedictory. Then 
we discussed ways and means. 

John suggested there might be a chance of 
collecting a few dollars on some of the adver- 
tising we had been running. He thought there 
were a couple of accounts he could get some- 
thing for. We gave John our blessing and 
started him out. Then we decided to withhold 
the paper until late in the evening, so we could 
get all ready to leave by the night train. That 
gave us pause. Leave by the night train ! How 
in thunder were we going to leave by a night 
train ! It took money to ride on trains and we 
wouldn't have any after we had squared our 
bills and paid our help. 

While we were considering this the door 
opened and a young man came in. ** How's 
business?" he asked. 

'^Eotten!" we both shouted. 

^ ' Same here, ' ' he said. Then he told us he had 
come down from Chicago a time before and 
opened a broker ^s office for the sale of stocks 



NEWSPAPEE MAN 107 

and grain. He hadn't made a trade. He was 
broke and lie was going back. That, however, 
wasn't the object of the meeting. He was a 
telegraph operator, of course, and as he had 
no business to do he listened to the gossip on 
the wire. He had taken off a dispatch that had 
gone through telling of the death of Henry 
Ward Beecher. He thought we might like to 
have it, inasmuch as he gathered we had no wire 
service. I grabbed it, put a scarehead on it and 
put it on the first page of the paper that night — 
double leaded. That was the only piece of real 
telegraph news the *^ Evening Eagle" had dur- 
ing the time the ^^Sole Editors and Proprietors" 
were editing and proprietoring. 

John came back presently. He had scraped 
up seventeen dollars. We put this with our 
pile and paid off. We had to pay the plate man 
when he came round, but we decided to use 
only the paper we had on hand, which would 
print about two hundred copies of the paper. I 
took a few to make my file complete and so did 
Tad ; and when the newsboys came we told them 



108 THE MAKING OF A 

to come back at six o'clock, tliat we had liad an 
accident to our press. When we did let the 
paper loose we gave the entire edition to the 
boys and told them to go out and sell what they 
could and keep the change. 

Tad had been rummaging in the desks. Sud- 
denly he let out a whoop. ^^Hi!" he shouted. 
** Here's luck ! Here are parts of mileage books 
our friend left behind." 

We examined the books with great interest. 
We figured them out by the aid of timetables. 
With one we could go as far as Sioux City, Iowa, 
and with the other as far as Detroit. 

*^ Which way do you want to go?" I asked 
Tad. 

"I don't mind," he answered. 

Neither did I. Sioux City looked exactly as 
good to me as Detroit, which wasn't very good 
at that. We discussed this proposition for a 
time. Tad didn't want to make a decision, nor 
did I. Eeally, it was immaterial — except that 
Tad said he knew a man in Sioux City whom he 
might borrow a few dollars from until he got 



NEWSPAPER MAN 109 

on his feet. They liad been scliool friends and 
Tad thought he was in the coal business. That 
being the case, I insisted Tad should take the 
Sioux City book, for I knew nobody there, nor 
in Detroit; and I might just as well land in 
one place as the other, inasmuch as I should be 
without money, practically. Tad wouldn't have 
it that way. 

** Let's jeff for it," he suggested. 

'* All right." 

Jeffing is a game played with type, a printer's 
method of gambling when nothing else is handy. 
We went out and got the type and jeffed, best 
two out of three. Tad won. He took the Sioux 
City book and that left me the Detroit one. So 
that was settled. 

As the afternoon wore on we paid our bills 
round town, paid the landlady and the boarding- 
house keeper and packed our trunks. I sent 
mine back to the city from which we came, by 
express, and Tad checked his to Sioux City. 
When everybody was paid we had but a few 
dollars left. These we divided equally. 



110 THE MAKING OF A 

Then we gave the word to the pressman and 
the last edition of the ' ^ Evening Eagle, ' ' under 
the sole proprietorship and editorial manage- 
ment of two boys who at the moment had about 
twelve dollars in capital, was issued. "We read 
Tad's valedictory with much interest. We 
thought it looked pretty good. It was in the 
seventh issue under our management. 

When we had given the boys their papers we 
shook hands with John and Chet, locked the 
door and solemnly threw the key into a gully 
that ran near the office. We walked down the 
street and did not turn to look back at the scene 
of our failure. I have never known what be- 
came of the ^^ Evening Eagle." I don't know 
whether the man who sold it came back and 
took it, whether the sheriff got it, or whether 
the plant rusted out where it was. I don't 
know whether the paper was continued, or by 
whom if it was. I don't know what happened 
and I have never cared to hear about it. 

The only communication I ever had from that 
place since then came a few weeks later. It 



NEWSPAPER MAN 111 

was from John, and he accused me of taking his 
old, faded umbrella away with me. Six months 
later I heard from Tad. He had a job running 
a coal and wood office on the outskirts of Sioux 
City. Later he studied medicine and now is a 
big doctor in an Eastern city. 

The trains left almost at the same time that 
night. We stayed round the hotel until time 
to go. Then we spent half a dollar each to 
ride up to the station in a hotel hack. There 
was another passenger. He was a jewelry sales- 
man who, as he said, *^was beating it out of 
this burg.'' He had done no business. We 
didn't know what our friend who sold us the 
paper might try to do, so we said nothing about 
ourselves. We knew we should be out of the 
state in the morning and safe from him, at any 
rate. I never did go back in that state for seven 
years. On the way up to the train the jewelry 
salesman told us that some big railroad shops 
had recently been moved from the city, giving 
the place a bad crimp. That was another indus- 
trial fact we had neglected to inform ourselves 



112 THE MAKING OF A 

about before we made our plunge. Still, our 
misfortunes were not the fault of the people. 
They were kind and hospitable and encourag- 
ing. Tbey treated us well. The trouble was 
that we were two visionary young fools, who 
started on a ten-thousand-dollar adventure with 
about four hundred dollars in real money. We 
deserved all we got. 



NEWSPAPER MAN 113^ 



CHAPTER XIII 

I bade Tad good-bye when my train came in 
and climbed aboard. We had figured the mile- 
age correctly. It lasted to Detroit. Then the 
conductor firmly told me he would have to have 
money or another ticket. Inasmuch as I had 
no ticket and little money, I got off to think 
the problem over. It was a cold morning, colder 
than any other morning I have ever known, I 
think, looking back at it; and the people of 
Detroit didn't seem interested in my affairs at 
all. I went uptown and made the rounds of 
the newspaper offices, thinking to get a job. 
There were no jobs. At least, there was no 
job for me, as various city editors told me 
variously. 

I had a big Irish frieze ulster I had bought 
early in the winter. It saved my life, for I 
economized on food. As I wandered round De- 

8 — Newspaper Man. 



114 THE MAKING OF A 

troit I came on a ticket-scalper's office. I 
counted my money again. This wasn't neces- 
sary, for I knew how much I had. It was less 
than five dollars. I decided to go to Buffalo, 
for I had a friend there who would give me 
enough for a ticket home. I was sure of that. 
My shoes were good and I spent half a dollar 
for a pair of arctic overshoes at a second-hand 
store. I figured I would ride two dollars ' worth 
and walk the rest of the way. I took some stuff 
out of my grip and checked the grip in the rail- 
road station, thinking to send for it when I 
was in funds. That didn't cost anything. The 
man said I should pay when I got it out. I 
never got it out. It may be there yet for all 
I know. I stowed my stuff away in my pockets 
and then went back to the scalper's office. He 
had a ticket over the Grand Trunk, good as far 
as London, Ontario. He wanted two dollars 
and a half for it. I inquired and found the 
regular fare was about three dollars and a half, 
as I remembered it. It may have been more or 
less than that. Anyhow, it was more than I 



NEWSPAPER MAN 115 

wanted to pay, and I went back to the scalper 
and offered him two dollars for his ticket to 
London. He sold it to me. 

The train left abont half past ten, but I sat 
in the station for several hours before that time. 
It was warm there. When the train pulled out 
I had a comfortable seat in the smoking car, 
though I had nothing to smoke. Money was 
too precious to be wasted on such luxuries. The 
conductor looked at my ticket for a long time. 
My heart was sick with fear that he would re- 
ject it and put me off the train. Finally he 
punched it and passed on. One of the dreams 
that comes back to frighten me even now is a 
vision of that conductor — ^big, bearded, red- 
faced, standing with a lantern under his arm 
turning that ticket over and over and looking 
quizzically at me. Suppose he had rejected it ! 
The thought scares me stiff yet. 

The train ran a little late and it was five 
o ^clock in the morning when the brakeman sang 
out: ^'London! All out for London ! Ten min- 
utes for refreshments. ' ' That meant me, though 



116' THE MAKING OF A 

I had no idea of getting any refreshments at 
that particular time. I had slept a little and 
was feeling pretty fit. I climbed down and fol- 
lowed the crowd into the station. At one end 
of the big waiting room there was a lunch 
counter. Most of the passengers made dives for 
that and ordered coffee and doughnuts or pie. 
I went over to take a look. 

One sleepy man was in charge. He was busy 
attending to the wants of the passengers. I 
noticed that the sandwiches and doughnuts and 
apples and cakes were piled on plates near the 
edge of the counter and that at regular intervals 
there were little round apple pies — nice-looking 
little round apple pies — all brown on top and, 
where the juice had seeped through the edges, 
that beloved shiny black that I knew would taste 
so well. I fingered my few coins. Those apple 
pies tempted me. And I fell. 

I edged in here and there among the passen- 
gers and turned sideways to the counter. Then, 
at an opportune moment, I slipped off an apple 
pie into the big side pocket of my ulster. I 



NEWSPAPER MAN 117 

waited a minute. Nobody had seen me — and 
I edged in again. Before the conductor called, 
^ * All aboard ! '' I had five pies in my ulster pock- 
ets — five nice little brown apple pies — and a 
couple of doughnuts. Of course I stole the pies. 
That crime hung heavy over me for years ; but 
once, a long time later, when I was up that way 
on a story I went into that station and handed 
the astonished lunch-counter man half a dollar. 
I told him it was conscience money. He thought 
I was crazy and said so, but he didn't give back 
the half dollar! I imagine the company didn^t 
get it either. 

I stood on the platform and watched the pas- 
sengers get aboard. The train pulled out. I 
watched it as far as I could see the rear lights. 
I reckon I was the loneliest boy in the world 
at that moment ! There I was in London, On- 
tario, with about two dollars in my pocket and 
a hundred and fifty miles from the nearest place 
where I could get any more ! I was too proud 
to telegraph home and I resolved to walk in. 
Walk in ! It was in March, cold and snowy. I. 



118 THE MAKING OF A 

knew all that ; but I was young and strong, and 
thought I could manage somehow. My ulster 
would protect me, and I figured I could make 
fifteen miles a day and get there inside of two 
weeks. Besides, I had five apple pies for sus- 
tenance and, if worst came to worst, could spend 
.a dime or so for food or lodging. 



NEWSPAPER MAN 119^ 



CHAPTER Xr^ 

I turned back into the station. Tlie night man 
looked at me suspiciously. I felt again just as 
I had felt when the conductor scrutinized my 
ticket. Heavens ! I thought — if he should know 
about those apple pies ! He didn't, though. He 
asked me what I wanted. 

**I want to stay here in the station until morn- 
ing/' I explained hurriedly. **The family I 
am going to visit expected me last night, but I 
was delayed and I don't want to go up to the 
house until morning. Please let me sit here. 
I won't bother anybody." 

He was on the point of turning me out, but I 
pleaded with him so earnestly he finally said : 

'^All right, kid. Make yourself comfortable.. 
It's against the rules, but I'll chance it. Only 
you'll have to get out early in the morning, be- 
fore the day man comes on." 



120 THE MAKING OF A 

The day man came on at seven o'clock, wlien 
it was still dark— and still cold, I may say. He 
made no move to shove me ont and I stayed 
on, finally persuading myself I had a right to 
be there, inasmuch as I was waiting for a morn- 
ing train. Presently the train came in. I didn't 
go on with it, of course; then I bought a cup 
of cofpee and started down the track. On the 
way I ate my first apple pie. Coffee and then 
apple pie may not be the idea of a food faddist 
for breakfast, but it hit me as being a most ex- 
cellent combination. Also, as I walked down 
the track through London, I arrived at the wise 
conclusion that I must conserve my food re- 
sources or go hungry later in the coming days. 
Ingersoll is nineteen miles from London and 
I thought I might be able to get there that day. 
1 started in good form and by noon had reached 
a place called Waubuno. Then I ate another 
apple pie. It didn't taste so good as the one 
I had for breakfast, so I put in one of my dough- 
nuts also. That helped a lot, and I started off 
for Ingersoll like a professional pedestrian. 



NEWSPAPER MAN 121 

My greatest trouble was witli my ulster. It was 
very heavy. If I took it off and carried it I 
became too cold, notwithstanding the exertion 
of walking; and if I kept it on I was too hot. 
I compromised by taking my arms out of my 
sleeves and letting it swing on my shoulders. 
Before I reached Waubuno I thought that ulster 
weighed a hundred pounds; but three miles 
the other side of Waubuno it began increasing 
in weight until it weighed a ton. I wanted to 
throw it away, but knew I should freeze if I 
did. I lightened my load by discarding most 
of the things I had kept out of my grip. 

The last ^ve or six miles to Ingersoll were 
slow and painful. My feet began to hurt. My 
arctic overshoes, for which I had spent half a 
dollar in Detroit, were holding out pretty well, 
but they were uncomfortably warm at times. 
Still, the track was fairly clear and the trains 
not frequent ; I plugged along until, about seven 
o'clock, I got into Ingersoll. I had been ten 
hours making nineteen miles and was very tired 
and very hungry — and I had no place to sleep 



122 THE MAKING OF A 

in sight and no food save an apple pie. I 
walked through the town. The most hospitable 
place I saw was a livery stable, where a man 
was cleaning some horses. I asked if I might 
sit down by his fire for a time. He said I 
could. When he had finished his horses he came 
in and we talked for an hour. He was a middle- 
aged man, smelling strongly of horses ; and he 
told me he slept in a room boarded off from the 
hayloft upstairs in the livery barn. 

I was so tired and sleepy my eyes kept clos- 
ing and my head dropping on my chest. 
Finally, about nine o'clock, he punched me and 
said: 

*^Say, boy, I'm going to bed. Where are you 
going to sleep r' 

^^I don't know," I answered. 

^^ Haven't you got any money!" 

''Not much," I told him, and then let him 
have my whole story. 

''Come on up with me," he urged. "I ain't 
got much of a place, but you're welcome." 

He took me up to his room. It was a small 



NEWSPAPEE MAN 123 

room, with two bunks in it built against the side 
of the wall. I turned in in the upper bunk, 
clothes on except my ulster and shoes, pulled 
the blankets over me and was asleep in half a 
minute. He poked me out next morning at six 
o^clock. '^Come on down and help me do the 
chores,'' he said, *^and I'll try to find you some 
breakfast. ' ' 

When I tried to put on my shoes I found that 
walking nineteen miles through the snow over 
a railroad track was not so easy a task as I had 
thought it. My feet were swollen and painful, 
and I had hard work jabbing them into my 
shoes. I hobbled down and, after he had told 
me how to hold a pitchfork, helped him with his 
work. He went out about eight and came back 
with a bucketful of coffee and some bread and 
slices of cold meat. I ate ravenously, thinking 
to conserve my pies, which I had examined that 
morning and found to be in fair state of preser- 
vation. 

He told me Woodstock was the next town of 
any size; and, by looking at my timetable, I 



124 THE MAKING OF A 

found it was nine miles farther along. About 
ten o^clock I started. The day was bright and 
sunshiny and the snow had thawed a little; so 
the walking was difficult. My feet hurt too. 
The weight of the ulster was unbearable; so 
I took it oif and made a sort of a pack of it 
with the belt, and carried it suspended from my 
left shoulder. Half a dozen times I was on the 
point of throwing the ulster away, but I had 
sense enough to keep it. That was about the 
first time I had a glimmer of sense since I de- 
cided to go into journalism for myself. That 
ulster kept me from freezing half a dozen times. 
I crawled along the track, passing one or two 
little places where the men who were in sight 
looked at me in a way that said to me plainly i 
^'There's a tramp that ought to be arrested.*' 
Nobody molested me and I hobbled into Wood- 
stock long after dark. It had taken me all day 
to walk nine miles. At that rate I would get to 
Buffalo along in April sometime. I thought. 
Woodstock is a nice little town, but there are 
not many people on the streets on cold March 



NEWSPAPEE MAN 125 

nights. I walked up and down the main street^ — 
I have forgotten its name, bnt I suppose it was 
King Street, or High Street ; most of them are 
— looking for a place where I could buy some 
food for little money. I had eaten two of my 
pies during the day. The idea of eating another 
pie for supper made me ill. I had but one left 
and was on the point of throwing that away, 
but thought better of it and kept it. 

I went into a hotel barroom and asked a man 
I found there if there was a good, cheap res- 
taurant in town. He directed me to a place 
down the street and I got a beef stew for fif- 
teen cents that was hot, filling and, without 
any doubt, the best dish I have ever tasted in 
my life. Then the sleep problem came. I 
needed sleep more than I did food. I could 
walk no more. Each foot felt as big as a pump- 
kin and as hot as a basebumer stove. 

The waitress in the restaurant told me there 
was a hotel on one of the side streets where I 
could get a good bed for fifty cents, provided 
I had the fifty. I should have to pay in ad- 



126 THE MAKING OF A 

vance, she said, for I didn't look very respect- 
able or overburdened with money. I went down 
to the hotel. It was a clean-looking place, bnt 
the man in the office was the grimmest-looking 
person I ever saw. My heart sank as I walked 
np to the desk. 

^^Can I get a room heref I asked. 

'^Yon can," he said with a broad Scotch burr 
in his speech, ^^if you have the money/' 

'^Howmuchis it?'' 

^^ Fifty cents." 

I fingered my coins. Fifty cents would make 
a big hole in my resources. 

*^ Can't you put me in some back room — any 
sort of a room — anywhere!" I asked desper- 
ately — ^'and only charge me a quarter? You 
see," I explained tremulously, ^^I haven't got 
much money and I have just got to sleep. I'm 
in a hard ^x ; and I '11 send the other quarter to 
you as soon as I get to Buffalo. Pie as e^ 
mister ! ' ' 

He looked at me coldly. '*This is no place 
for tramps!" he said. 



m WSPAPER MAN 127 

**I'm no tramp!" I argued. *^ Indeed, I am 
not. I'm in hard luck, but I'm not a tramp. 
Come on, now, and be a good fellow. I'll do 
any kind of work you want me to to make up 
that other twenty-five cents. ' ' 

** Where will you be getting your breakfast!" 
he asked, with some show of interest. 

'*I don't know or care. Please let me have 
abed. That's all I ask." 

He looked at me steadily for a minute or 
two. I must have been a woebegone spectacle. 
Then he asked, rather irrelevantly, I thought: 

^What is your business?" 

**I'm a newspaper reporter," and I blurted 
out the whole story of my misfortunes. He had 
heard of newspaper reporters and, on the whole, 
considered them a bad lot. One had come down 
from Hamilton once to look into the sale of some 
land he was interested in and had not impressed 
him favorably. Still, I might be different: and 
I looked honest. I thought of the apple pie in 
my ulster pocket and blushed with guilt. 

^ * Can ye write a letter ! " he asked. 



128 THE MAKING OF, A 

Could I write a letter! I assured him I was 
the correspondence king. I probably was the 
best letterwriter in the world. Then he told 
me he had a long and important letter to write 
that was worrying him. It concerned a farm 
he owned in the back country and if I would 
promise to talk with him and get his ideas and 
write the letter in the morning he would give 
me a bed for twenty-five cents. 

I know I cried a little from sheer joy when 
he told me that. A bed, at that time, seemed 
to me the acme of human desire! He led me 
up on the third floor and showed me a good, 
clean bed in a little room. I was asleep in five 
minutes. But, Heavens ! how my feet hurt ! 



NEWSPAPER MAN 129 



CHAPTER XV 

He rapped me up before seven o'clock next 
morning. '^Come down and have a bite of 
breakfast before we begin/' be said. I hurried 
through that toilet like a man who has but ^Ye 
minutes to get off a sleeping car. They gave 
me oatmeal, and bacon and eggs, and cotf ee, and 
great slices of wonderful bread and new, sweet 
butter. It was a feast! I ate until I was 
ashamed. Then I went out to the office and we 
took up the work of the letter. He told me 
what he wanted to say and I made a draft of 
it for him. That didn't suit him and I made 
another. Finally I got it as he wanted it and 
wrote it as plainly as I could for him to copy. 
By this time it was noon and he gave me my 
dinner and told me I had better stay until the 
following morning. I rested all that day, had 
a great sleep at night and another corking; 

P — Newspaper Man. 



130 THE MAKING OF A 

breakfast. When I tried to pay liim fifty cents 
for the two nights' lodging he wouldn't take it. 
He said my letter had earned it; and he told 
me how to make a crosscut that would save 
me some walking and get me into Paris that 
night, nineteen miles by the railroad track. 
Some years later, when I had money, I bought 
and sent to that man the finest brier pipe I 
could find in New York, reminding him of the 
circumstances; and his scrawled letter of 
acknowledgment is one of my treasures. 

As I started to Paris I took stock. I had 
accomplished twenty-eight miles and had spent 
twenty cents of my money. It was a cold, crisp 
morning; my feet felt better and I was reason- 
ably cheerful. I tried the road my landlord 
told me of, but found the walking not so good 
as on the track and soon went back to the rail- 
road. At noon I ate my last apple pie. I had 
had a respite and it tasted very good, though 
its long stay in my ulster pocket imparted a 
sort of a clothy flavor that didn't help it any. 

Those nineteen miles to Paris were long and 



NEWSPAPEE MAN 131 

weary, especially as the only food I had was 
the apple pie. It must have been nine o'clock 
when I got in. A railroad section man let me 
bnnk with him and gave me a big sandwich of 
corned beef and thick bread. I got a cnp of 
coffee and two biscuits for breakfast and started 
for Brantford, eight miles away. By this time 
I looked like a tramp. My face was covered 
with a, bright-red stubble of a beard ; my trous- 
ers were tied round my ankles with heavy 
string; my overshoes were badly scuffed out, 
and I was much wrinkled and mussed. How- 
ever, by wearing my ulster when I was near a 
village and pulling my hat down over my eyes, 
I managed to get through without trouble until 
I reached Brantford. 

At Brantford a constable nailed me. He said 
tramps were his special meat and he was con- 
vinced he had a fine specimen in me. I didn't 
blame him any; but I talked him out of taking 
me to the lockup and got on such good terms 
with him that he told me of a hayloft filled with 
hay, where I might get in and sleep. Brant- 



132 THE MAKING OF A 

ford, it seemed, had no accommodations for 
young gentlemen of the road like myself. Nor 
was there any place to get anything to eat. I 
was faint with hunger, but I crawled into the 
hay, buried myself to the neck and was soon 
asleep. The man who owned the barn came in 
early next morning, carrying a tin pail. He 
fussed round on the ground floor of the bam 
for a time and then went out. I slid down the 
ladder, grabbed the pail and vanished. I 
thought it might be his dinner bucket. When 
I got a mile away I opened the pail. I had 
guessed correctly. There was a chunk of boiled 
beef, some bread and butter and a wedge of 
apple pie. I threw the pie away. 

It was twenty-four miles to Hamilton, a city 
of considerable size, and it took me two days 
to make it. The food in the dinner pail kept 
me going all that day; and at night a farmer 
let me sleep in his house and gave me some 
soggy potatoes and fried salt pork and tea for 
breakfast, for fifty cents. I surreptitiously 
slipped a few slices of the fried pork into my 



NEWSPAPEE MAN 133 

coat pocket and later transferred them to my 
ulster pocket That ulster pocket was my com- 
missary. The fried pork held me until I 
reached Hamilton, where I was extremely wary 
about railroad detectives in the railroad yards. 
I figured that I must be somewhat presentable 
in that city, for I hoped to find a way to get 
some money. I found a barber shop near the 
station, got a shave for ten cents and turned 
my collar. Then I buttoned my ulster round 
my neck, threw away the remains of my over- 
shoes and swaggered into the station. I had a 
look at myself in the glass, and, though my 
clothes were somewhat rumpled, I didn't look 
so badly. And I was almost eighty miles on 
my way. 

There was a lunch counter in the Hamilton 
station. It was more ornate than the one at 
London, but it had the same sorts of sand- 
wiches on it, the same doughnuts, the same 
cakes and the same apple pies ! An apple-pie 
Nemesis had me in her fell clutches. A train 
came in. The passengers crowded up to the 



134 THE MAKING OF A 

lunch counter. I edged in and edged out. Wlien 
tHe train was called I had edged in and edged 
out four times — and I had six nice little brown 
apple pies in my ulster pockets ! I tried to get 
some sandwiches, but they were covered with 
paper and stuck, though the apple pies slid 
into my pockets easily. I guess I was calloused 
by that time, a hardened apple-pie burglar, for 
I never did try to pay them back for that lot. 

It is in the neighborhood of forty-five miles 
from Hamilton to Niagara Falls. It took me 
four days to make that trip, and I had the hard- 
est time of the outing. It grew very cold. I 
had to sleep in a straw stack one night. They 
arrested me in St. Catharine's, but the judge 
turned out to be my friend. He wore a Masonic 
charm on his watch-chain. I wasn't a Mason, 
of course, being less than nineteen at the time, 
but my father was; and I told him that, and 
told him so convincingly that he not only let 
me go, but lent me a dollar besides. 

I ate those six nice little brown apple pies 
in the course of those four terrible days, and 



NEWSPAPER MAN 135 

not much else ; for I was saving my money for 
a shave and a clean collar and a general clean-np 
at the Falls and a ride in. I didn't know just 
how I could do all that for a dollar-eighty, but 
I had hopes. I ate those six nice little brown 
apple pies; and for ten years after that I 
couldn't look an apple pie in the face. 

My experiences along the road had taught me 
to go into towns by the back streets and I came 
into Niagara Falls in just that way. I escaped 
the police on the Canadian side, got over the 
bridge all right and walked down to take my 
first near view of the American Falls. I was 
standing on the parapet watching the Falls and 
wondering how much it cost to go to Buffalo by 
train, when I felt a tap on my shoulder. ^'Po- 
lice ! " I thought ; and as I turned I exclaimed, 
** Please, sir, I haven't been doing anything!" 

The man who tapped me on the shoulder 
laughed. He was a man from my home town 
who was a consul at Clifton. He happened to 
be in Niagara Falls, saw me on the street and 
followed me. 



136 THE MAKING OF A 

*^ What's the matter*?" he asked. 

I told him. Three hours later I started for 
Buffalo, bathed, shaved, with new linen and 
new shoes — and with enough money in my 
pocket to get me home. Four days after I got 
home my mother died. 



NEWSPAPER MAN 137 



CHAPTER XVI 

As soon as possible I began looking for an- 
other place. I went down to see my former 
city editor, bnt neither he nor the managing 
editor displayed any enthusiasm about having 
me rejoin the staif. They told me I had been 
a fool to quit and go off on a wild-goose chase 
after editorial fame and fortune the way I did, 
and I knew they were right, although I didn't 
care for their method of imparting the truth 
to me. I visited all the other city editors in 
the place, but apparently I had not sufficiently 
impressed myself on the journalism of that 
locality to make it imperative to secure my serv- 
ices; in fact, they all said they could worry 
along without me, and they all did. 

I was then nineteen, had learned a bitter les- 
son, and was anxious to return into the business 
at whatever salary might be offered. I looked 



138 THE MAKING OF A 

back at the days when I had received ten dol- 
lars a week and thought that a princely income. 
Papers in two or three other cities in the state 
wanted men, I heard, and I applied, but soon 
learned they didn't need me. I knew I could do 
as good work as half the men on these papers, if 
not better, but I couldn't make anybody else 
think so. Besides, it was summertime and they 
were letting out men — they said — instead of 
taking them on. Nobody on earth appeared to 
have the slightest desire for my valuable serv- 
ices. I tried applying by letter — speaking en- 
thusiastically about my capabilities and vast ex- 
perience — all the way from Portland, Oregon, 
to Portland, Maine, and didn't get a rise. 

Hence I turned my attention to general litera- 
ture. I essayed fiction, poetry, special articles 
and all other branches of that fascinating pur- 
suit. One periodical took a story, promised 
me ten dollars and didn't pay. After a few 
weeks I concluded there was no nourishment in 
that, so with a couple of friends I built a shack 
in the woods on the shore of a lake a few miles 



ISTEWSPAPER MAN 139 

from home and went out there to spend the 
summer and think things over. Foraging was 
good, the fish bit well and the problem of living 
was easily solved. After long reflection I con- 
eluded I was a dub and might just as well live 
out my life in that shack as a hermit. I planned 
it to the last detail. It was manifestly impos- 
sible to be a hermit that summer, for the other 
boys were with me, there were plenty of young 
people camping and living in cottages at the 
lake, and there were dances and corn-roasts and 
fishing parties and excursions and picnics and 
other festivities to be engaged in — and, inex- 
perienced in hermiting as I was, I knew that 
festi^dties were not compatible with the job. 
But when winter came I intended to remain 
there, let my hair and whiskers grow — I could 
picture myself with a long, flowing red beard — 
and settle down to hermit out the rest of my 
pitiful existence. 

It was a lively summer. I had a lot of fun 
at no expense save the exertion of catching fish 
and garnering other foodstuff. Clothes did not 



140 THE MAKING OF A 

bother me, and except when the girls were along 
no shoes were worn. I fully decided I was a 
failure, and had rather pleasant anticipations 
of long winter nights alone in the shack, with 
no company but my thoughts and my faithful 
dog. I didn't have a faithful dog, but I was 
sure I could find one somewhere. Then on 
the first of August a man from the telegraph 
office at the head of the lake came up with a 
telegram for me. It was from my old managing 
editor, and said if I wanted to come back and 
substitute during the vacation season he would 
give me that place and my original ten dollars 
a week. 

He told me to answer by wire. I didn't do 
that. I answered in person, arriving there the 
next morning and forgetting all about my 
hermit decision. Indeed I think I should have 
made a mighty poor hermit, and probably it 
is just as well. 

I fell easily back into the old swing and 
worked until the middle of September. Then 
the boys were all back from their vacations and 



NEWSPAPER MAN 141 

the editors told me they were sorry but they 
had no place for me. I had been frugal during 
this employment and had saved a few dollars, 
and I didn't mind dismissal much. I had an 
idea I wanted to branch out again and had been 
writing round to several people on the office 
letter heads. 

I had a nibble from a big city in another state. 
Under most careful nursing the nibble devel- 
oped into a bite, and on the day I left my sub- 
stitute job I started for the other city. I didn't 
know what I should get, but I was ready to 
tackle anything from leading editorial articles 
to imdertakers and morgue, and had endeavored 
to impress on that editor my ability to do just 
that. 

I went round to see the man who had asked 
me to come on. It was on Saturday afternoon. 
He told me he was busy, gave me a ticket to 
the theatre and said I should come in late on 
Sunday afternoon and he would see what he 
could do. The show was Dixey in Adonis, and 
had Amelia Summerville playing the Merry Lit- 



142 THE MAKING OF A 

tie Mountain Maid. I was all cheered up with 
the idea of getting work and applauded every- 
thing enthusiastically. I was a couple of hours 
ahead of time at the office next day, and the 
editor was an hour late, which gave me a creepy 
feeling. Perhaps he didn^t mean it! 

He did, though. He came in presently, read 
his letters, gave some orders and then told the 
boy to bring me in. He was a kindly man and 
listened tolerantly to my enthusiastic recital of 
my experience and abilities. Then he said: **I 
had expected to put you on the local staff, but 
the situation has changed"^ — ^my heart sank into 
my shoes at that — ^'and I cannot spend any 
more money in that direction just at present. 
However, now that I have brought you on, I can 
^x you temporarily" — my spirits rose again in 
a rush — ' ^ and will give you a place as assistant 
proofreader. The salary will be fifteen dollars 
a week." 

Assistant proofreader ! That was worse than 
I had expected even in my most pessimistic mo- 
ments. My disappointment showed in my face, 



NEWSPAPER MAN 143 

for lie leaned over and said gently: '^I am 
sorry, my boy, but I don't own this paper. If 
I did things might be different. I am working 
for wages here jnst as the others are, and sub- 
ject to the whims of the man who pays those 
wages. Be a sport and take this place, and 
presently I can ^x you.'* 

I gulped two or three times and then straight- 
ened up in the chair. ^^All right," I answered. 
''When do I go to workr' 

'* To-night. Report to Mac, the head proof- 
reader, in the composing room at six-thirty. 
Good afternoon.'^ 



144 THE MAiaNG OF A 



CHAPTER XVII 

Mac was a thin, cadaverous man, who had 
asthma and smoked cubeb cigarettes. He had, 
in addition to his asthma, a chronic grouch 
against all editors, reporters, printers and all 
other branches of the newspaper business, and 
claimed they would all show themselves as igno- 
ramuses if he wasn't there to catch and correct 
their errors. He was largely right. Mac had 
a great deal of information packed into that 
asthmatic head of his. 

The composing room was on the top floor of 
a four or five-story building, I forget which. 
The business ofSce and editorial rooms were 
on the ground floor, and the lofts between were 
vacant. There was no elevator. I remember 
perfectly how my footsteps on the stairs echoed 
dismally through those vacant lofts as I climbed 
Tip to the composing room for my first night's 



NEWSPAPEE MAN 145 

work. I wasn't especially cheerful either. It 
was pretty tough for a rising young journalist, 
who imagined he kaew all there was to know 
about the business, to be reading proof. Still 
I had made up my mind I would do anything 
round that place before I would quit, and I 
went in and introduced myself to Mac. He, 
looked at me curiously. 

*^Ever read proof T' he asked. 

I told him I had, and detailed my experience 
in the local room where I began my newspaper- 
work. 

Mac sniffed. ''Great Scott!" he said, ''an-, 
other stuff unloaded on me by that soft-hearted 
managing editor! Does he think I am running 
a kindergarten up here!" 

It seemed so to me, but I didn't answer. I; 
held copy all that first night and read revises. 
Mac was one of the most expert proofreaders 
I have ever known, and his need really was a 
copy-holder and revise reader, with a man to 
jump in and take a few galleys during the late- 
rush. He almost could handle the job alone.^ 

to — Newspaper Man. 



146 THE MAKING OF A 

The proofreaders^ desks were in the composing 
room, a lively and interesting place, and there 
was a good deal of loafing-time in the early 
hours when copy was slow. From midnight on 
the proof desk was the busiest place in the es- 
tablishment. 

I made up my mind I might just as well be 
friends with Mac, who at heart was a mighty 
good fellow, and I laid myself out to win him. 
It didn't take long. Mac saw I was a rank 
amateur, but I had told him how much I needed 
the job, and he excused my stupidity and errors 
and encouraged me by saying I had the mak- 
ings of a proofreader in me. He worked on 
his first night off after I got there, too, so the 
job wouldn't fall on me before I knew the ropes, 
and we became fast friends. Incident ally ^ Mao 
taught me a great deal about reading proof and 
gave me graphic and exact information about 
each member of the statf. I knew all their 
weaknesses and all the gossip about them and 
could tell their copy the minute it came to hand. 
Some of them were pretty bad and some were 



NEWSPAPER MAN 147 

good, bnt it wasn't long before I was convinced 
I was as good as any of them and only needed 
an opportunity to prove it. 

I had plenty of time to myself, as I got off 
about four o 'clock in the morning and slept until 
noon, thus having the afternoons for myself. I 
found a room about a mile from the office. The 
landlady said I could have it for two dollars and 
a half a week if I would room with another 
young man. She brought up the other young 
man. He was a West Virginian who was study- 
ing to be an undertaker, and had the room filled 
with the tools and textbooks of his profession. 
He slept at night and I slept in the daytime, so 
the arrangement worked well, and I gathered 
considerable information from him about em- 
balming and kindred topics. I couldn 't see why 
anybody should want to be an undertaker and 
he was at a loss to understand why anybody 
should read proof for a living, so we started 
out on a mutual basis of disagreement and got 
along famously. 

My fifteen dollars a week kept me going 



148 THE MAKING OF A 

nicely, but I was lonely, for I rarely came in 
contact with any of the men on the editorial 
staff, except the night editor. They held an 
assistant proofreader in low esteem anyhow. 
So my companion on my nights off was the 
embryo undertaker, who was a fine chap. We 
went to theatres together and, as Saturday was 
payday with me and my day off, we indulged in 
a chop and a bottle of ale afterward and im- 
agined we were rolling high. On Saturdays, 
too, I smoked my only ten-cent cigar of the 
week. The rest of the time I smoked stogies 
that came about seven for ten cents. I found a 
cheap restaurant where I could get breakfast 
and dinner for fifty cents a day, and at mid- 
night a man came into the office with sandwiches 
and coffee. So I saved some money. 

I had been working for about three weeks 
and everybody in the editorial rooms had for- 
gotten my existence, except once when I let a 
bad bull go through on a revise and heard from 
it emphatically, when the foreman came over 
to Mac about midniarht and said: ^^What do 



NEWSPAPEE MAN 149 

you know about this I That stiff that writes 
the alleged paragraphs for the editorial page 
hasn't showed up to-night and I'm ready to close 
that page."^ 

' * Close it^ ' ' said Mac. ^ ' It will be better with- 
out them.'' 

It so happened that the editorial paragrapher 
was a nephew of the man who owned the paper 
and had no ability, but was kept on the paper 
because his uncle didn't know what else to do 
with him. He had picked out paragraphing as 
the softest job on the paper, though real iDara- 
graphing is one of the hardest, there being then 
and now but few writers who are good at it. 

Here was a chance for me. ''How many do 
you need?" I asked eagerly. 

**0h, half a dozen or so to make a showing," 
the foreman said. ''Why I" 

''I'll write them." 

The foreman and Mac laughed. "Go to it," 
the foreman said. I wrote eight. When they 
came through in proof Mac read them carefully 
and said: "Not so rotten." That was higli 



150 THE MAKING OF A 

praise from Mac. Next night the nephew came 
up and asked Mac : ^^^Hio wrote the paragraphs 
last night ? ' ' Mac jerked his thumb at me. The 
nephew took me aside. ^'Keep it np/' he said, 
^*and I'll fix it with my uncle so you get down- 
stairs. I hate paragraphing anyhow. I want 
to be sporting editor.'' 

So I wrote the paragraphs every night for 
a week and gave them to the nephew, who copied 
them and handed them in. Then the managing 
editor came up. ''Who's writing those para- 
graphs?" he asked. They told him I was. 
^'Quit it," he ordered. ''Do you think I'm 
going to let that lobster get by this way! Chop 
it, or I'll fire you." 

That was a body blow. I hoped the managing 
editor would recognize true merit and take me 
downstairs, but he didn't. Still I had plenty 
to do. The night editor found I knew something 
about make-up, and he let me make up the 
early pages while he luxuriated in a place near 
by. The foreman and the assistant foreman 
hecame my firm friends and I found some of 



NEWSPAPER MAN 151 

the printers were pretty good companions. So 
at the end of the first month I was reasonably 
well contented, was getting an insight into com- 
posing-room methods that stood me in good 
stead later, and was sending down a few spe- 
cial articles to the managing editor, some of 
which he ran in when copy was short. 

Then I had a smashing blow in the face. One 
morning about &ve o 'clock, after work was over 
and I had been sitting round and talking with 
Mac and the foreman, I started down the long 
stairs through the vacant lofts to go to my 
room. My eyes had been hurting a good deal 
for a couple of weeks and I had vaguely con- 
sidered going to see a doctor about them. I 
was using them hard and continuously under 
the electric light on the proofs and not taking" 
any too much sleep, for I was exploring the 
city and trying to find material for special 
articles. I walked down the stairs and out on 
the street. Just as I reached the sidewalk all' 
the lights seemed to go out and things became 
utterly black before me. I couldn't figure out 



152 THE MAKING OF A 

what was the matter, but stood uncertainly on 
the walk, unable to see at all. 

I heard somebody coming out and called, 
*'Who is it I" It was Mac. I told him what 
had happened. I could hear him muttering 
under his breath. He took me by the arm and 
led me to my room. On the way I realized that 
I had become blind. I couldn't see! I almost 
collapsed when I got that straight in my head. 
Mac had been cheering me up all the way. 

^^Mac," I quavered, * that's the matter with 
me? Am I blind r' 

^^ Don't worry about that,'^ soothed Mac. 
•'I've seen this happen a lot of times," he lied 
encouragingly. '*A few days' rest and you'll 
be all right. I'll have the doctor over to see 
you early in the morning." 

Mac led me to my room and helped me un- 
dress. He told the student of undertaking to 
look after me, which he did, and I lay there in 
total darkness until nine o'clock, thinking it 
might be just as well to kill myself and have 
it over with. The doctor came at nine o'clock. 



NEWSPAPEE MAN 153 

Mac hadn't gone to bed, but had called a famous 
oculist and came with him. Afterward I learned 
that grouchy, asthmatic, cynical, sardonic Mac 
had guaranteed the doctor's bill. 

The doctor said the trouble was merely tem- 
porary. I needed glasses, and a few days in 
a dark room would fix me all right. This helped 
a lot and the student of undertaking stayed with 
me like a nurse. He quit his studies and read 
to me and told me stories about his adventures, 
and Mac dropped in every day with the news 
of the office. On the fifth day my sight came 
back as suddenly as it had left me, the doctor 
fitted me to a pair of glasses and I was appar- 
ently all right. That day Mac came in in a 
state of excitement for him. 

'^Say, kid," he said, ^ there's a guy got a 
paper down in the next state who wants an 
editor. Here's his name. Write to him and 
maybe you'll get the job." 



154 THE MAKING OF A 



CHAPTEE XVIII 

I wrote and then went back to work Mac 
favored me a lot for two or three days. The 
new glasses worked well and I was getting 
rapidly into the old stride when, one morning 
about ten o'clock, the landlady knocked on my 
door and said there was a gentleman to see me. 
He came up. It was the man to whom I had 
written about the editorship. 

We talked for a time and he said I seemed 
to be just the man he wanted. He said there 
was a big strike on in his town; that he and 
another man who had been working in the mills 
had started the paper to take the side of the 
strikers; that they had plenty of money and 
that it was a mighty good game. 

He said the town was all in sympathy with 
the strikers and the union, and that the other 
papers were owned by the corporations; and 



NEWSPAPER MAN 155 

it was the chance of a life tune to jump in and 
grab all the business and circulation in the 
place. 

^^But,'' he said, ^^ before I hire you I want 
to see what you can do. I notice on the news- 
paper bulletin boards in town that Jefferson 
Davis is dead'' — he wasn't, it was a false re- 
port — ' ' and I wish you would write me a column 
editorial on Davis, remembering that our city 
is about half Union and half Confederate. Give 
him his deserts, but don't slop over on him." 

I spent the afternoon writing my opinion of 
Jefferson Davis for a constituency half Union 
and half Confederate, and mailed the result 
to the owner. Two mornings later I received a 
letter from him containing a railroad mileage 
book and an invitation to come on and take the 
job. He said the editorial was great and he 
regretted that Davis had not died, so that he 
might use it. However, he promised to save it 
until the proper time should come. 

I asked the managing editor if there was any 
chance of my getting downstairs, and he said 



156 THE MAKING OF A 

there wasn't at that time; so I quit, bade good- 
bye to Mac and my friends in the composing 
room, packed my trunk, had a last chop and 
bottle of ale with the student of undertaking 
and took the train on Monday morning early. 
The owner was at the station to meet me. 

^'Come on up to my house for dinner," he 
said. ^^Then we will go down to the office." 

We walked up to his house. As we came in 
he called up the stairs, ^^Mary, dear, IVe got 
our new editor here for dinner." 

'*You have?" replied Mary acidly. ''How 
nice of you! And this washday and not a 
thing for dinner but vegetable soup and cold 
meat! You have got about as much sense as 
a canary bird." 

' ' Don 't mind that, ' '' he whispered. ' ' I plumb 
forgot it was washday." 

It wasn't so bad as Mary had said. At din- 
ner the owner told me the story of the great 
strike, how he had started his paper, how much 
money he and his partner had, how it was 
doing, and afterward we went down to the office. 



NEWSPAPER MAN 157 

it was located up one flight of stairs. As we 
entered I saw that the outfit was not much bet- 
ter than the one I had owned the year before. 
I had a chill. Still I found that he had ar- 
ranged for a condensed telegraph service, that 
he really had a telegraph wire running into 
the place and an operator, and that there was 
an experienced man working as the entire local 
staff. He had a fairly good press and the busi- 
ness end of it was all right. 

The local staff came in and I met him. He 
was a reporter in hard luck, like myself, but 
he had had about ten times as much experience 
as I had. However, the owner made me editor- 
in-chief and we went at it. The telegraph oper- 
ator, who wasn't very affluent himself, took the 
telegraph report, wrote the heads and rewrote 
the important items, expanding them as much 
as he could. The local staff and the editor-in- 
chief got and wrote all the local, the editorial 
articles, most of the advertising, made up, read 
proof — in short, we got out the paper. We 
lambasted the tar out of the criminal corpor- 



158 THE MAKING OF A 

ations that were oppressing the strikers, and 
had a gay old time. Salary was regular for 
a time. Then it became wobbly. It cost more 
to run a new paper than onr owners supposed 
and the corporations were putting on the screws 
wherever possible. My fifteen dollars a week 
dwindled some weeks to six and seven dollars 
and some orders on merchants who advertised. 
It didn't look good. 

One day the local staff threw me over a letter. 
It was from a man in a Southern city who 
wanted an editor. '^Take it," he said; ^^I am 
going north when this blows up." 

I went out and telegraphed. I had an an- 
swer that afternoon telling me to come on, and 
next day I quit and started south. All told 
I had about seventy-five dollars in money I 
had laboriously saved. "When I got to my town 
I found I was in with another new proposition. 
There was a big and influential paper in the 
city and this one had been started by a dis- 
gruntled politician who had been kept out of 
the graft. 



NEWSPAPER MAN 159 

This man gave me twenty dollars a week, and 
my duties consisted entirely in an editorial 
supervision of the paper and the writing of 
editorial articles attacking his enemies. We had 
three reporters and were well fixed in handling 
the local. 

I fussed round for a week getting the lay of 
the land, and then one afternoon I let go a 
screamer about the local boss and some of his 
henchmen. That article certainly did call those 
persons by their right names. The boss was 
so tickled with it that he had it put on the first ^ 

column of the first page and double-leaded. 
When the paper came up the city editor walked 
over to my desk. 

'* Better keep under cover for a few days,'^ 
he advised. 

^^W^hy?'^Iasked. 

**That stuff means shooting down here,'' he 
told me, ^^and they're just as likely to shoot 
you as not." 

That was a contingency that had not appealed 
to me. There was nothing in being shot, so far 



% 



160 THE MAKING OF A 

as I could see. Nothing happened. The local 
political reporter told me the politicians 
growled some, but that was all. Three days 
later I printed another. At the end of the 
week we put one out that made the first one 
look like a tract. By this time I was convinced 
that all this talk about shooting was a bluff, 
and I dismissed it from my mind. I was elated, 
too, for we were getting action. The people 
began to side with us, and the boss said all we 
had to do was to keep at it and we would drive 
them all to their holes. 

^^That last one almost took the rag off the 
bush,'^ he exclaimed enthusiastically. ^^Give 
them another to-morrow and we'll have them 
on the run. ' ' 

Then he raised my salary to twenty-five dol- 
lars a week and took me out to luncheon. We 
walked down the street. As we turned the cor- 
ner a man stepped out of a doorway, holding 
something bright and shiny in his hand. I re- 
member looking at him curiously and wonder- 
ing what the shiny thing was. 



NEWSPAPER MAN 161 

**Diick!'^ yelled tlie boss, diving for a door- 
way and tugging at Ms hip pocket. 

I heard a sharp report and something whizzed 
by my head. It sounded like a big bee buzzing. 
Then I realized the man with the shiny thing 
in his hand was shooting at me. I don^t re- 
member whether I got into that store through 
the transom over the door or through the plate- 
glass window. I got in somehow and landed 
behind a counter. The boss had unlimbered his 
pistol by this time and was peppering at the 
man in the street from behind a soda-water 
fountain. Each fired five times. They were 
poor shots. Neither was hit. The man in the 
street disappeared up an alley and the boss 
loaded his pistol and took a careful reconnois- 
sance. ''Come on,'' he said to me. ''It's all 
over for the time being. We'll eat now." 

I didn't eat anything. It didn't seem time for 
gustatory exercises. Instead I hurried back to 
the office. There the local political reporter im- 
parted the cheerful information to me that the 
gang had decided to "get" this fresh North- 

/ / — Newspaper Man. 



162 THE MAKING OF A 

erner who had come down there and was abus- 
ing them, and that probably I was due to be 
shot sooner or later. He said they expected to 
shoot both the boss and myself that day. 

The boss was used to that sort of politics, 
but I wasn't; and after writing a flaming story 
about the attempt of cowardly assassins to mur- 
der in cold blood the fearless publicists who had 
dared to tell the truth about them, and defying 
them and calling them many other fancy names 
to the extent of a column and a half, I decided 
that I needed a change of air and I took it. 
Years later one of the men who was in the plot 
to shoot me told me they only desired to scare 
me. I told him they succeeded in their desire. 



NEWSPAPER MAN 163 



CHAPTEE XIX 

I had expanded a little, so far as living ex- 
penses went, and didn't have as much money 
when I left as I had when I arrived ; but I had 
enough to get to a big Southwestern city some 
hundreds of miles north, and I went there. In 
a week or so I had a place as one of the as- 
sistants to the sporting editor of a morning 
paper. My part of the work was to look out 
for the amateur ball games and amateur sport 
of all kinds. I got twenty dollars a week. That 
place didn't last long. One of the peculiarities 
of the editor was to discharge the first man in 
on any morning when the opposition morning 
paper beat us on a big story. I didn't know 
that. One morning after I had been there a 
week or so I came whistling into the office about 
eleven o'clock. The editor was standing in the 
middle of the local room, with a crumpled copy 



164 THE MAKING OF A 

of our paper in his hand, on the alert for his 
victim. 

''Get out!'' he squeaked. ^*6et out! You're 
fired! Get out!" 

''What fori" I asked in amazement. 

"Don't stand there asking fool questions. 
You're fired, I tell you! Get out!" 

And he stamped back to his room. I waited 
at the foot of the stairs until the sporting editor 
came along and then I told him of my experi- 
ence. "By George!" he said, '^I forgot to tell 
you about the old man. I'm sorry. Where do 
you expect to go now?" 

The sporting editor fixed it so that I got the 
few dollars coming to me on my second week, 
and I walked over to the hotel and sat down in 
the lobby and thought bitter thoughts concern- 
ing the injustice of things in general and of that 
squeaky-voiced maniac of an editor in particu- 
lar. That got me nowhere. Neither did my ap- 
plications for work on the other papers. So I 
decided to go West. 

The most convenient way to travel, I thought 



NEWSPAPER MAN 165 

was to travel light, so I sold my little stock of 
personal possessions to a second-hand dealer, 
keeping my best suit — I had two then — and 
bought a soft hat and a gray flannel shirt. I 
sold everything I had except a few handker- 
chiefs and a change of underwear. Then I 
visited the ticket scalpers. I found a ticket for 
eleven dollars that would take me a good long 
way toward the setting sun, and I bought it. 
That night I walked down to the office, shook 
my fist at the editor's room and took the train. 

The town I landed in was a railroad centre 
with two poor newspapers. They didn't want 
any men. I had about decided to try another 
trip and beat my way when I got a job as barker 
for a restaurant near the railroad station. My 
business was to stand outside the restaurant 
when trains came in and call the attention of 
the passengers who got off to the unrivaled col- 
lection of comestibles within at cheap prices. 

I fixed up a fancy line of vocal allurement 
for the unsuspecting traveling public and was 
quite successful in getting them to come in. The 



166 THE MAKING OF K 

proprietor told me I was the best barker lie 
bad ever bad. Besides, my habits were good 
and I was always in shape to work. He saved 
good food for me and, although I was in hourly 
fear that some one I knew might come along and 
discover the predicament of a rising young 
journalist, I had a good time, a clean place to 
sleep and plenty to eat. Naturally I made 
friends with the regular customers. A good 
many of the conductors used to eat there. The 
town was a division point, and after a month 
or so the conductors knew me well enough to 
befriend me. 

*^Say, kid, said one of them, ^^ what's your 
idea in standing out here and yelling your head 
off about this bum grubT' 

*^T\Tiy," I replied, ^'IVe got to do something 
and this seems to be the only opening here for 
a bright young man like myself.'' 

*^How'd you like to go East?" he asked. 

I told him I had come out there to grow up 
with the country, but, now that he had men- 
tioned it, the East looked pretty good to me and 



NEWSPAPER MAN 167 

I'd like to go that way better than anything I 
knew. 

^'All right," he said, ^*hop on my train when 
I go ont to-night." 

I hopped on, much to the displeasure of the 
proprietor of the restaurant, who told me I was 
ruining a promising career as a barker by quit- 
ting him in that way. I rode in state to the 
end of that conductor's run and he passed me 
on to the next conductor. This lasted all the 
way to Chicago, where I arrived sleek and well 
fed and with money in my pocket. Also I ar- 
rived in a sombrero and a pair of tan-colored 
boots that I had bought from a cowboy who was 
financially embarrassed at the moment of the 
sale and was willing to sacrifice these treasures 
for the wherewithal to procure rum. 

There was a man whom I had known as a 
boy who kept a hotel in that town, and I hunted 
him up. He was glad to see me and extended 
the hospitalities of his place to me for as long 
as I cared to stay. I tried all the newspaper 
offices, but soon found that Chicago newspaper 



168 THE MAKING OF A 

offices were different from those to which I had 
been accustomed. I got no farther than the 
dinky reception rooms in most of them, and had 
the most emphatic refusal of work from a man 
who, ten or fifteen years later, gave me a most 
important position. I rather expected to have 
no luck and I didn't care much. If worst came 
to worst I could get another job as barker in 
a restaurant, or waiter or assistant manager, for 
I had kept my eyes open and knew a lot of the 
tricks of cheap eating places. 

Once in a while the boys on the old. paper 
wrote to me. I had written to most of them 
from Chicago. One day I got a telegram from 
one of the boys on the old paper. ' ' Come on, ' ' 
it read; ^^the chief says you can have a place 
on the local staff.'' 

I went on that night, first disposing of my 
sombrero and tan-colored boots. I hated to do 
that, but I figured I wouldn't make much of a 
hit in the old local room in that rig. I knew 
that from the guying I got on the streets of 
Chicago. When I arrived the chief told me I 



NEWSPAPEE MAN 169 

could go to work, if I wanted to, for fifteen dol- 
lars a week. I grabbed that fifteen. And there 
I was back again where I started. He didn't 
know it, and I didn't tell him, but I would have 
taken ten. 

There was a new city editor, a friend of mine 
and a fine chap. He gave me an opportunity. 
He handed me good assigiiments and I pro- 
gressed rapidly. It wasn't long before I had 
the introductions to all the big stories and was 
allowed to write specials when nothing big was 
stirring. Still I had my troubles. One night 
about half past six I was sitting in the office, 
finishing some work. All the other boys had 
gone to dinner. The telephone bell rang. I 
answered the call, which was from the police 
station. The lieutenant said there had been a 
murder out in the eastern part of the city ; that 
a woman had been found in the cellar of her 
house strangled, and that the coroner was just 
starting for the place. 

I knew the coroner would have to drive past 
our office, so I left a note for the city editor 



170 THE MAKING OF A 

telling him I was on the case and jumped down- 
stairs. The coroner came by; I stopped him 
and he let me ride with him. "We reached the 
scene of the murder in half an honr. The house 
was a story-and-a-half affair in an outside 
subdivision of the city, and the building nearest 
to it was a hundred yards away. The woman 
had been found by her husband — ^who was a 
tinner and had been working on a roof on the 
same street — ^when he returned for supper at 
six o ^clock She had been dragged to a corner 
of the cellar and strangled by a cloth flour-bag 
that was wound tightly round her neck. 

It was a good story. I had a crack at it be- 
fore the police got there, and I talked to every- 
body and got everything bearing on the case. 
Nobody had seen a man go in or out of the 
house, but it was apparent that the woman had 
been killed soon after dinner, for she had been 
washing that day and her clothes were still in 
the tub. The husband said she had left the 
clothes in the tub in order to prepare the din- 
ner and then eat it with him. I discovered, or 



NEWSPAPER MAN 171 

thought I discovered, that the husband and wife 
were not on good terms, and that was enough 
for me. I got back to the office about nine 
o'clock, bursting with the story, which was the 
most sensational murder we had had for some 
time. I told the city editor what I had and he 
shouted excitedly: ^^ Write every darned line 
you can! You can have all the space in the 
paper. And put hair on it!'' That meant to 
make the story sensational, which I was aching 
to do. 

I sat down and went at it, always bearing in 
mind my instructions to liven it up, and I turned 
out a dime-novel yarn about that murder. It 
had hair on it, all right. When I got to the 
identity of the murderer or to the discussion 
of motives I was going finely. With the in- 
formation I had concerning the woman's trouble 
with her husband I dashed off this gem, while 
describing the body and its discovery by the 
reporter and the coroner: ^^As she lay there, 
there was an expression on her face that forced 
the thought that she had been struck by one 



172 THE MAKING OF A 

she loved; not pain, not anger, only surprise 
and grief. '^ 

We all thought that was great when the 
proofs came down, and it certainly did look 
fine in full-face type in the paper next morning. 
Then the afternoon papers came out and each 
had an editorial condemning the paper for 
printing an accusation of this kind against the 
husband, who clearly was not the murderer; 
condemning the editor who passed it, and par- 
ticularly telling how many kinds of a fool the 
reporter was who wrote it. One of the editorial 
writers went a bit into my journalistic history, 
to my confusion, and both agreed I was a star- 
spangled donkey and should be sweeping streets 
instead of working as a reporter. That started 
all the ^*Pro Bono Publico^' and ** Amazed 
Reader'^ letter4o-the-editors boys, and the way 
they scalped me was sickening. It got to be 
more of a sensation than the murder itself. 
Two preachers preached about the ** Irresponsi- 
bility of the Press" on the following Sunday 
night, and one of them flayed me alive. The 



NEWSPAPER MAN 173 

opposition papers printed the sermons in fnll 
and the weekly papers took a hack at it. I 
sneaked round on the back streets for a fort- 
night. I expected to be discharged, but the 
managing editor never mentioned the thing to 
me. 



174 Tim MAKING OE A 



CHAPTEE XX 

Not long after this I had further proof that 
the managing editor was my friend. It had 
been announced that Larry Donovan, who had 
emulated Steve Brodie and had jumped from 
the Brooklyn Bridge, was coming to our town 
to jump over our falls, a feat that had never 
been accomplished successfully. For six nights 
I had the assignment, ^^Find Larry Donovan.'' 
For six nights I kept on the trail of Larry, and 
he did not arrive. On the seventh night I had 
the same assignment. That night I played pool 
until eleven o'clock and came back to the office 
with the usual report that Larry had not ar- 
rived. We ran a column of short local jottings 
each day under the head of '^Town Talk," and 
each member of the staff was expected to con- 
tribute five items. My first for that night was 
'* Where is Larry Donovan?" 



NEWSPAPEE MAN 175 

Next morning the opposition paper informed 
the city adequately where Larry Donovan was. 
He was in the hospital, having arrived in the 
city the night before and made the jnmp. Any 
time the city editor sent me upon a special 
mission after that he wrote down my assign- 
ment and after it the words, ^^and find Larry 
Donovan. ' ' 

In about a year and a half things began com- 
ing my way. I had my salary raised to eighteen 
dollars a week and was made baseball reporter 
and dramatic critic. Baseball came in the sum- 
mer when the theatres were not running, and 
there was no baseball when the dramatic season 
was on. My baseball and theatrical stories were 
popular with the people, but intensely unpopu- 
lar with the persons who owned the ball club 
and the playhouses, for I told the truth about 
both institutions. I became a personage. When 
my friends came to town I could pass them into 
the theatres, and I always was good for reserved 
seats at the ball games. Also I was making 
some money by corresponding for out-of-town 



176 THE MAKING OF A 

papers and I considered that my career in 
journalism was safely begun. 

Then there came a state convention to the 
city. I was put in charge of the story. A lot 
of out-of-town reporters were there and I knew 
I had to make good, for these stern critics would 
see my work every morning, while nobody on 
the ground would see the stories they tele- 
graphed back until their papers came in by mail, 
and there would only be a few of these. I had 
two of the boys to help me and we worked prac- 
tically all the time. We were doing very well 
and had even received a word of commendation 
from the managing editor, until the morning of 
the day when the nomination for governor was 
to be made. 

There were two or three candidates. I had 
my story all written, when a man I knew to be 
in the confidence of the bosses came in and 
told me it had been decided to name a certain 
man. I changed my story, put a paragraph at 
the head of it giving this news and went to bed. 
Next morning I came early to the office. I felt 



NEWSPAPER MAN 177 

pretty good. I was the first man in — ^bnt one. 
That one was the managing editor. I fonnd 
him standing in the middle of the local room 
with a copy of the paper crumpled in his hand, 
giving an exact imitation of the managing 
editor who had discharged me a long time 
before. 

^^It's all off," I thought; ^^I'm fired." 
^^What do you mean by thisf" shouted the 
managing editor. ^^What do you mean by mak- 
ing a fool of me in this way! "Why did you 
print that this man is to be nominated when I 
know that another one is!" 

I explained. That didn't seem to satisfy him. 
He was so angry that he sputtered. Then it 
came out that at a conference of the bosses the 
night before it had been decided to nominate 
a certain other man who was considered most 
available — ^he was beaten, by the way. The 
managing editor had been at the conference. 
''Why didn't you tell me!" I asked. 
' ' Get out ! " he yelled. ' ' Get out ! " 
It all sounded familiar. I wondered if all 

12— Newspaper Man, 



178 THE MAKING OF A 

managing editors acted that way. All real ones 
I had ever known did, anyhow. I left him in 
the middle of the floor and stood at the bottom 
of the stairs nntil the boys who were on the 
story with me came along. I told them the story 
and said I thought I was discharged. They said 
they'd qnit if I was. I told them they probably 
wonld, anyhow, but we made that compact and 
i^^ent npstairs to see what was coming out of it. 

I went in to the managing editor. 

*^ Chief- — " I began. 

'^What time does the convention open!" he 
asked — rather irrelevantly, I thought. 

^^Ten o'clock." 

^^Well, you'd better be getting over there if 
you're going to do the story." His eyes 
twinkled. He certainly was my friend. 

In addition to my baseball and theatrical 
work, I had been writing, several times a week, 
half a dozen short stories about funny little 
things I had seen or heard. These we ran under 
the headline, ''Side Lights on Life." I noticed, 
on reading the exchanges to get baseball and 



NEWSPAPER MAN 179 

theatrical clippings for the Sunday edition, that 
a paper in a big city to the west of us reprinted 
a good many of these short stories of mine. ^^If 
they are good enough to reprint, why wouldn't 
that editor like them at first hand?" I asked my- 
self. 

I determined to ask him. So I went up there 
on my first day off and did ask him. He said 
he would like to print them first hand if he 
knew who wrote them. I told him I did. He 
engaged me to do theatres, hotels, this short 
stuff and specials and said he would give me 
twenty-five dollars a week. That was as much 
as our city editor got. It was wealth beyond 
the dreams of avarice. I went back, resigned, 
and in two weeks I was working in the new 
place. 

The editor who gave me twenty-five dollars 
a week and an opportunity to do the kind of 
work I liked is the man to whom I largely owe 
whatever success I may have had in life. Be- 
fore I came there I had been allowed to do 
pretty much as I pleased and my writing had 



180 THE MAKING OF A 

not had the benefit of close editing. He was 
a man who had begun somewhat as I had and 
had won his way to the top of that big news- 
paper by sheer ability and hard work. Ap- 
parently he liked me, and I know I liked him 
immensely, and I consider him, to this day, one 
of the best friends I ever had. At any rate, 
he took me in hand, held me down to brass tacks, 
was not at all chary in pointing ont my faults — 
of which I had many — and when I did anything 
worth while praised that work judicially. 

He was a stylist — ^not a faddist — ^but a writer 
who believed in clear and simple English and 
could write it so well that I used often to wonder 
if I ever could get the grasp of language that 
he had. He was strong, virile, and could put 
more in one paragraph than most of the rest 
of us can get in a column. Moreover, he had 
a head packed full of information and knew his 
city as well as I knew the alphabet. Night after 
night I have seen him stop at the desk where 
the city directory was kept and read a few 
pages of names. The result was that as he 



NEWSPAPER MAN 181 

looked over every proof lie spotted an error 
instantly, and there was no chance of any mis- 
statement of fact concerning local affairs get- 
ting by him. He had a prodigions memory and 
knew thoroughly all the social, political and 
business intricacies of the town. He was in- 
tolerant of stupidity, but had a strong sense of 
humor and a vivid appreciation of the inter- 
esting and the human. 

Practically I was working for him, although 
I was nominally on the city staff and under 
the city editor. I was anxious to please and to 
learn. There were two reasons for this : First, 
I was twenty-two years old and considered it 
high time for me to get squared away in the 
work I had chosen for life; and, second and 
greater, I was married and had serious respon- 
sibilities. Everybody who knew me said that 
by marrying when I was not yet twenty-one I 
had proved that I was the same kind of a 
sentimental fool that I was when I dashed out 
and bought a daily paper some years before. 
But I wasn't. My early marriage steadied me,, 



182 THE MAKING OF A 

kept me from doing fool things, made me chary 
of shifting positions, held me where I was until 
I had a good insight into my trade and kept 
me keen at my job. 



NEWSPAPEE MAN 183 



CHAPTER XXI 

The city editor didn't warm up to me much: 
at firsts although we became good friends in 
later years. I think he had an idea that the 
managing editor had no business to project 
an outside man into his staff the way I was put 
in. Also my salary was within a dollar or two 
of his, which may have had something to do 
with it. When they put the linotypes into the 
old office a year or so before I changed base, 
we all learned the typewriter, and I brought 
mine with me to the new place. I was the first 
reporter in that city to use a machine in pre- 
paring copy and consequently I was an object 
of considerable interest to all the staff. Now, 
of course, nearly all newspaper copy is made 
on typewriters. The introduction of the lino- 
type forced that, because the typesetting ma- 
chines are so much faster than hand composition 



184 THE MAKING OF A 

and the printers had to have longer 'Hakes" 
or sections of copy than they conld handle in 
manuscript form — decrease in bulk and increase 
in legibility — in order to work the machines 
advantageously. 

The paper was a morning paper, and I went 
to work on a Monday afternoon. My first as- 
signment was the theatres. That night there 
was to be a first production of a new play. I 
have forgotten what the play was, but it was 
by some well-known dramatist of that day and 
the production was quite an event. They gave 
me two seats, which were the regular critics' 
seats, but I went alone, as I knew nobody in 
the town save a few of the people I had met 
in the office and my wife was not with me. A 
very prosperous and pleasant gentleman sat 
next to me on the aisle, and with him a beau- 
tifully gowned and most attractive lady. I 
knew the paper had four seats for every per- 
formance and I figured that this man must be 
somebody important in the organization. 

The man did not go out between the acts, nor 



NEWSPAPER MAN 185 

did I, and I overheard his conversation about 
the new play — ^which was not a very good play, 
by the way. The man had a frank manner of 
talking and used some very apt comparisons. 
Also he held the same views about the play 
that I did. Hence on my way back to the office 
I reasoned thus : That man undoubtedly is high 
up in the conduct of my paper. He held very 
decided views about that play. Those views 
coincide largely with mine. Where they do not 
coincide with mine his judgment probably is 
better than mine. So ITl let him criticize the 
play, as it is up to me to make good here as 
rapidly as possible. 

Wherefore, instead of being a critic of that 
play I became a reporter, mostly, of another 
man's criticism, for I was terribly anxious to 
make a good impression with my first work and 
I considered that the end justified the means. 
I wrote a column about the play and it was 
run under a four-line head. Next morning I 
was early at the office. Soon after the editor 
came in the man who sat next to me at the ^ 



186 THE MAKING OF A 

theatre the night before came in also. Before 
he reached the editor's room he called out: 
^*Who wrote the criticism of that play last 
night r' 

'* Here's where I either get it or else don't," 
I thought, and listened eagerly for the editor's 
reply. He spoke my name and asked, ^'Whyf" 

^^ Because," said the man, ^^I consider that 
the best piece of criticism this paper has had 
for some time." 

Perhaps that wasn^t pleasant to me! Five 
minutes later I was called in and introduced. 
The man was the owner and editor-in-chief of 
the paper. Many times after that I wrote pieces 
he didn't like, and he was always frank to tell 
me so; but he was my loyal friend and stood 
by me during the ^ve years of my association 
with him, as I hope I stood by him and as I 
always tried to do. He died a short time ago. 
He was brave, able, manly — a great editor and 
a great man. 

Not long afterward, on a dull afternoon, the 
city editor told me to go out and rustle a fea- 



NEWSPAPEE MAN" 187 

ture story of some kind. *^ Let's start a cru- 
sade," he said; ^4t's been a long time since we 
have jumped on anything for fair. You are 
new here and probably can see things that are 
nuisances which we overlook because of their 
familiarity. Start something." 

I went out and took a look around. The thing 
that had impressed me most while I had been 
in the place was the dirtiness of the manufac- 
turing part of the city, the enormous nuisance 
of the soft-coal smoke that belched unceasingly 
from hundreds of chimneys. The city I came 
from was a hard-coal town. I hadn't walked 
a block before I decided this was the worthy 
subject of a crusade. I made a few notes and 
came back and pounded out three screaming 
columns about this frightful menace to the 
health and comfort of our citizens. 

When I handed in my copy the city editor 
looked at the first page and chuckled. I didn't 
know why, for the story was not humorous. It 
was deadly serious. He ran through the copy 
and chuckled some more. I puzzled over that 



188 THE MAKING OE A 

chuckle for a long time. When I looked at the 
proofs I found that he had put a two-column 
head on it and it was in the paper the next morn- 
ing yelping after the smoke nuisance like a pack 
of hounds after a fox. It looked pretty good 
and I was reading it when the proprietor came 
in. He walked over to where I was sitting and 
said: ^^I suppose you wrote that smoke article 
this morning!" 

**Yes, sir." 

'^Well, it was a fine article. I imagine you 
intend to follow it up to-day." 

^^Yes, sir," I replied, all puffed up. 

He smiled at me in that kindly manner of 
his and patted me on the shoulder. ^^Well, my 
boy," he said, *^I wish you would restrain your- 
self until we get our smoke consumers in. If 
you had observed carefully you would have seen 
that at present we are one of the worst smoke 
offenders in the city." 

That was all he said, but then I knew why 
the city editor chuckled. 

What a man he was! Three or four years 



NEWSPAPER MAN 189 

later, when I was in charge of the news of the 
paper, one of the police reporters brought in 
a circumstantial story of a counterfeiting gang 
that had been operating in our vicinity. He 
had names and dates. This reporter was a 
most reliable man. I had implicit faith in him. 
He said the story was all right and I played 
it up all over the paper. It was exclusive also. 
Two days later there came a howl from a man 
in a neighboring city. His name had been used 
in the story. He threatened a big libel suit, and 
I found, after investigation, that he had a case. 
I went to the owner and assumed responsibility. 

*^I'm to blame," I said; ^^I ran the story. 
The police reporter thought he was all right. 
What shall I doT' 

*^ Better go up and see what they want," he 
advised. 

I went to the neighboring city, wrangled for 
a couple of days with the man's lawyers and 
finally arranged a settlement for a considerable 
sum of money. I telegraphed to the owner, he 
telegraphed the money to me and I got a release. 



190 THE MAKING OF A 

Then I went back and handed him my resig- 
nation. He read it, said ^^ Shucks!" threw it 
in the waste basket and never spoke of the 
incident again. 

I was in Canada one day during my first sum- 
mer on the paper — Canada always furnished 
trouble for me — when I ran across a big Liberal 
political ratification. I think it was a Liberal 
meeting ; maybe it was a Conservative meeting 
— I have forgotten the exact brand of politics 
displayed there. At any rate, it was a political 
ratification meeting. I went down to look the 
meeting over, not that I was interested in 
Canadian politics or that my paper was, but I 
thought that I might get a story. 

I got one, there is no doubt about that. The 
politics didn't appeal to me in the least, but 
the whiskers of the men at the meeting did. 
There were more kinds of whiskers worn at 
that meeting by the sturdy Canadian yeomanry 
than I had ever seen gathered together at one 
time. There were whiskers of every variety 
and of every color, morasses of them, swamps 



NEWSPAPER MAN 191 

of them, meadows of them, wood limits of them, 
acres of them — whiskers, whiskers everywhere, 
and not a barbershop in sight. There were side- 
bums, brannigans, knockers, mutton-chops, -f nil 
beards, chin beards, paint-brushes, goatees, im- 
perials, Vandykes — every known variety and 
many that had not before that time been classi- 
fied. 

So I confined my story to the whiskers, men- 
tioning incidentally in the last line that the dis- 
play had been at some kind of a political meet- 
ing. I took up the whiskers in detail and de- 
scribed them, apostrophized them, apotheosized 
them, laughed at them, admired them, stroked 
them and ruffled them. I was proud of that 
story, and they ran it in on the first page. A 
day or two later a Canadian friend of mine, 
who read a good many Canadian papers in the 
course of his newspaper work, came in and said : 
*^Well, you've raised merry hell with that 
whisker story of yours. ' ' 

^^ What's happened?'' 

'*0h, nothing," he replied, pulling a bunch 



192 THE MAKING OF A 

of newspaper clippings ont of his pocket, *^ noth- 
ing at all, except that all the Canadian papers 
of the same political faith as the persons at 
that meeting are roasting the eternal tar out 
of yon for insulting and villifying their intel- 
ligent voters, and all the opposition papers are 
quoting it and calling attention to the kind of 
rubes that make up that constituency/' 

He was right. For three weeks he filed clit)- 
pings from Canadian papers and border papers 
with me, and the things they said about me were 
not fit for polite reading. The letter-writing 
brigade — always strong in Canada — got under 
way, and it seemed to me that I had insulted 
the Queen or done some other terrible thing. 
My editor thought it was a joke, and so it was, 
but it reacted. I have all the clippings pasted 
in a book, with the original article leading. The 
title of the book is Notes on Whiskers. Any 
time I want to say anything mean about a per- 
son I can find inspiration and language in that 
book. 



NEWSPAPEE MAN 193 



CHAPTER XXII 

For the first year my editor disciplined me 
pretty thoroughly. He clubbed a lot of writing 
defects out of me, curbed a lot of foolish en- 
thusiasm, encouraged any good idea I had, let 
me go to the limit when I was right and held 
me sternly in check when I was at a tangent. 
He took me over on the editorial page, where I 
was directly under his eye, gave me a paragraph 
department to do and smoothed me out to a 
great extent. Then when I was beginning to 
have an inkling of my business he turned over 
the news end of the paper to me. It was a 
departure, for before that time the city editor 
had been supreme in the local end and the tele- 
graph editor in his department. I was made 
responsible for both ends. 

Naturally I was full of ideas. I tried on a 
good many of them. The editor was tolerant 

13 — Newspaper Man. 



194 THE MAKING OF A 

and let me have full swing, and I soon found 
what would work and what would not. Then 
the city editor went on the Sunday paper and 
I took the actual city desk and also kept my 
supervision of the other news department. I 
put in a copyreader, the first we had had, and 
right there I began to grow a little. Also I 
had had my salary raised several times and was 
getting along comfortably. 

There was one good way of making outside 
money — to get an appointment as a local cor- 
respondent for a New York or Chicago or Phila- 
delphia paper. New York papers were best. 
The rivalry for these places was keen among 
the reporters in the city. Usually when a cor- 
respondent for a New York or Chicago paper 
left our town or quit for some reason his recom- 
mendation was sufficient to insure the appoint- 
ment of a new man in that field. Hence, though 
the managing editors in New York and Chi- 
cago didn't know it, there was a cash value to 
the jobs aside from the money that could be 
made from month to month. They were legit- 



NEWSPAPEE MAN 195 

imate articles of barter. A big paper, that bad 
a liberal news policy and wonld take a fair pro- 
portion of tbe news offered, was worth a good- 
sized sum of money as a business proposition. 
The first one I secured was the New York 
paper for which I worked for a good many 
years later in hfe. The man who had the job 
was leaving town and, on consideration of 
seventy-five dollars in hand paid, recommended 
me as the person best fitted to succeed him, and 
I was appointed. Some weeks when news of 
that section was lively I made as high as fifteen 
or twenty dollars in addition to my salary. It 
was a very poor week, indeed, when I could not 
get in ^Ye * dollars ' worth of stuff. Also I 
learned there the trick of making alluring 
*' queries." No outside paper, except in the 
case of most important and late stories, allowed 
its correspondent to send in the news without 
first telegraphing to the office, stating briefly 
what the story was and how many words in the 
judgment of the correspondent it was worth. 
These queries were numbered and read like 



196 THE MAKING OF A 

this: ^^Big fire in factory; fourteen killed; 
300"; or ^^Sensational shooting on fashionable 
street; well-known people involved ; 750"; and 
the news editor at the other end of the wire 
would order as many or as few words as he 
wanted. Naturally no story was underplayed 
in these bulletins. It was not long before I 
found out what kind of news the outside papers 
preferred, and I scheduled that kind insistently 
whenever there was even a remote chance of 
getting any space. As a result of the expansion 
and perfection of the service of the press asso- 
ciations the correspondence item probably is 
not so important to-day as it was in those days. 
Then we made a good deal of easy money out 
of it. Besides, when there was a local story 
big enough to warrant sending a staff man 
after it from the outside offices we got pay for 
helping him. 

My editor had been liberal with me and had 
allowed me to hire good men. I was making 
about fifty dollars a week when I worked seven 
days, and I had two men on the local staff who 



NEW^PAPEE MAN 197 

were getting twenty-five dollars each and one 
who was getting thirty. This man drifted in 
one day and asked for a place. I gave him a 
try-out, and hired him. He was the best re- 
porter I ever knew, bar none, and I have known 
all the good ones in the past twenty-five years. 
These salaries were large for the town. There 
never had been anything like it before, nor had 
there ever been a local staff like that before in 
that town. It was a compact, reliable and at 
times brilliant news-gathering machine, and we 
put out a paper that was excellent in every 
way. Those were good days. 

From a reportorial viewpoint every city 
editor is the meanest man on earth. He has to 
be. His job requires it. It is a natural and 
inherent reportorial tendency to think one's 
particular work the most important on the 
paper, to want all the big stories, to protest 
violently when his stuff is cut or not handled 
properly — as he thinks — and constantly to howl 
about the smallness of his wage. He holds the 
city editor personally responsible for all these 



198 THE MAKING OF A 

things. On the other hand, the city editor is 
held responsible by the editor for the expense 
of his department and for the thoroughness of 
the work of his staff ; and inasmuch as reporters 
are not especially amenable to discipline, he 
must be rigid and unyielding or he will soon 
find himself in trouble with the man in the in- 
side office. 

I don't suppose I was the pleasantest city 
editor on earth. I was quick-tempered, arbi- 
trary, inclined to be sarcastic over a failure, 
and I made the men work hard and long; but 
I got along fairly well for all that. I think the 
staff liked me; at any rate I liked the sta:ff. 
The editor gave me practically a free hand. 
I could hire and discharge almost at will, and 
did. Every now and then even to this day I 
hear things about myself from men I discharged 
for lapses of discipline or failure or lack of 
ability. Still that part of it is but a feature 
of the game. I don't blame thera. 

Once in a while I wrote a story myself, and 
I wrote many introductions to big stories. I had 



NEWSPAPER MAN 199 

a good newspaper style and could see the salient 
point of a story and bring it out vividly and 
concisely. Also I had a fair sense of hnmor and 
kept the paper lively. I was a stern young per- 
son and believed that everything that happened 
should be printed. One night at midnight the 
head of the police department decided on a gen- 
eral raid of all the questionable resorts in the 
city. He made a thorough job of it, apparently 
for the purpose of satisfying himself just how 
far he could go. He evidently thought over 
the matter and concluded that at that time of 
night, with none of the courts working and with 
the mayor asleep, he was the czar and he started 
out to prove it. The result was that in an hour 
he had three or four precinct station houses 
packed with an assortment of people that 
ranged from the highest to the lowest. In news- 
paper parlance we '^ate that story up." I 
spread it all over the first page of the paper 
with a three-column head. It so happened that 
Dean Hole, the English clergyman, was lectur- 
ing in the city that night. In the book he sub- 



200 THE MAKING OF A 

sequently wrote giving his impressions of 
America lie reprinted that headline and cited 
it as a horrible example of the American news- 
paper tendency to sensationalism, virtuously 
reflecting that no English newspaper would have 
done such a thing. Which probably is the 
truth, but we did it, and that story was a wonder 
and stood that town on its head. 

This tendency to print all the news got me 
into hot water several times, for I refused to 
suppress news that the friends of the owner 
wanted suppressed just as impartially as I de- 
lighted in printing news his enemies didn't want 
printed. He stood by me, too, and so did my 
editor: only one day, when I had done some 
particularly obnoxious thing to a friend of the 
owner's, the owner came in and asked pathetic- 
ally, ^* Great Scott, aren't you going to leave 
me any friends at all ! ' ' That paper was abso- 
lutely independent. It had no political affili- 
ations save the broad support of the better prin- 
ciples of the Eepublican party, and this left 
the editor and myself — subordinate to him — in 



NEWSPAPER MAN 201 

clover, especially as the business office couldn't 
interfere either. Whenever there was a local 
candidate for office whom we didn't like we 
said so, not taking any pains to be pleasant 
about it either. There were no strings on us, 
and we had a lot of fun and got a good many 
results. 



202 THE MAKING OF. A 



CHAPTEE XXin 

Ours was a big city and yet a small one. 
Local politics were as intense as in a village; 
local jealousies interfered with many plans for 
improvement; local enterprise was at times 
flamboyant and at times dead. There was one 
central gathering place — the big hotel — and at 
luncheon time almost everybody of importance 
could be found there. Here politics was planned 
and business was discussed. Also at five o 'clock 
in the afternoon the leaders in the various 
phases of the city's life generally dropped in. 
It was like the store in the village. Everybody 
knew everybody else, for when you got down 
to it the big outside population did not count 
much in affairs. The town was a good news 
town. It was a big railroad centre, a big manu- 
facturing place and held a most important com- 
mercial position. Always something was stir- 



NEWSPAPER MAN 203 

ring, and in our paper we made the most of 
what there was. 

It was a great five years for me. Along in 
my fourth year on the paper the owner and the 
editor gave me the title of managing editor. 
I thought I had arrived. The first sheet of office 
letter paper I had with my name on it as man- 
aging editor I used for a letter to my father, 
calling his attention to his gloomy predictions 
of some years before and asking him to observe 
what had happened. His observations in an- 
swer were pertinent, I may say, and admonitory. 
They consisted of a short communication in 
which he dwelt on the dangers of getting a 
swelled head, pointing out a few symptoms in 
my own case. 

Once, before I left the old town I had been 
offered a political job there. I was told that 
I could be deputy county clerk if I wanted to, 
and that the salary would be two thousand dol- 
lars a year. I was getting less than a thousand 
dollars a year at the time and I was sorely 
tempted, but I had sense enough to decline. I 



204 THE MAKING OF A 

had seen many other newspaper men leave 
newspaper work for political places, secretary- 
ships and the like, or to go into business, but 
I had concluded if I had any future at all it 
was in newspaper work. Only one other temp- 
tation to get out of this line of work came to 
me, although like all of my kind I was con- 
stantly talking in those days of the grind and 
the lack of future and similar rot. I had made 
many friends among the managers and advance 
agents of the theatrical business while at dra- 
matic work, and one of these managers told 
me that if I wanted it I could have a place at 
seventy-five dollars a week as advance agent 
for a good star. I went down to New York — 
it was my first visit to New York, by the 
way — looked things over and didn't accept. 
That was the second time in my life I showed 
ordinary common sense. 

New York is the Mecca of all newspaper men 
working elsewhere. Park Bow is the candle in 
which many country reportorial moths singe 
their wings. There were times when I wanted 



NEWSPAPER MAN 205 

to go to New York right away and I made one 
or two efforts to do so, for I was ambitions. 
I had many friends among New York news- 
paper men, all of whom urged me to get into 
the game down there, but I stuck and I am glad 
I did. When I did get to New York I was pretty 
well equipped for the grueling work there. 

Finally what I thought was a big opportunity 
came to me. A local rich man who had mixed 
in politics and wanted to mix more bought an 
afternoon newspaper. He spread himself on 
hiring men at fancy — for us — salaries, im- 
ported an editor and went at the job of securing 
power for himself through the medium of the 
newspaper business. A year or so later he 
started a morning paper and then bought the 
other morning paper — ^not ours — and combined 
it with his own. He had approached me several 
times with offers of positions, but I had not 
been responsive. 

Almost on the very day my five years ended 
he made me a proposition that caught me. He 
offered me the position of editor of his after- 



206 THE MAKING OF A 

noon paper at four thousand dollars a year. 
This was much more money than I was getting. 
It was more money than any newspaper man 
in the city was getting, with the exception of 
one or two. Besides, since I was eighteen I had 
been working practically aU the time on morn- 
ing newspapers and sleeping in the daytime, 
and I thought it would be great to have my 
evenings to myself. My wife coincided with this 
view. Except on days off I was only in the 
house to eat and sleep. 

I saw my owner and my editor. They said 
they couldn 't meet the raise, so I took the other 
place. ^^111 have to have a contract for two 
years, '^ I said to my new employer. 

''All right," he replied; ''have one drawn 
up.'' 

I went to a lawyer and he drew up a contract 
for me. It was iron-clad so far as I was con- 
cerned. My new employer signed it without 
reading it. He was as anxious to get me then 
as he was later to get rid of me. That contract 
proved a mighty good thing for me later on. 



NEWSPAPER MAN 207 

I hired some of the best men in the city and 
we started in. We made a good paper. I 
think all who read it will admit that, bnt it was 
not a successful paper. Another afternoon 
paper had the biggest circulation in the town 
and still another had the Democratic circulation. 
Of the four afternoon publications ours re- 
mained consistently third in spite of everything 
I or my men could do — and we worked like 
slaves. As a result before the end of my first 
year the owner and I were at loggerheads. 

We were constantly embroiled with the other 
newspapers and always on the losing side in 
politics. I kept my staff together as best I 
could, but the owner was constantly growling 
about the expense. Besides, there was great 
friction between the staffs of the morning and 
the afternoon papers, and I wished a hundred 
times I had not left my old place. I was very 
unhappy, but I was under contract. I cursed 
that contract in those days as much as I blessed 
it later. 

Things went from bad to worse. The mom- 



208 THE MAKING OF A 

ing paper was getting circulation and we were 
standing still. I had a fight on with the morn- 
ing paper, with the business office, with the pro- 
prietor and with everybody else. I tried to pull 
the paper out, but I couldn't budge it. I was 
the first man down in the morning and the last 
to leave at night. We tried guessing contests 
and many other forms of allurement, but there 
was no change — our circulation was stationary. 

The owner had the merit of being frank in his 
displeasure. He told me what he thought. I 
told him what I thought also. One day he sent 
for me to come over to his office. I went and 
found him at his desk, glowering at a circulation 
statement. 

'*You ain't doin' much," he exploded. 

'^Not much," I admitted. 

'^Well, I got to have a change round here. 
Fire those men an' come back an' tell me youVe 
done it." 

He handed me a list containing the names of 
nine men on my statf. The list included all my 
friends on the paper and all my best men. 



NEWSPAPER MAN 209 

**AU right," I said, and walked out. I went. 
over to the editorial rooms, called the men in 
in a bmich and gave them a week's notice. 
^^You are all discharged," I said — '^orders of 
the boss." 

^^Have you fired 'em?" he asked when I re- 
turned. 

^^Yes." 

**I suppose," he said, ^^you won't be very 
comfortable around here now all your pals are 
gone. ' ' 

^^ Not very." 

^^Well, hadn't you better quit?" 

I laughed at him. ^'I would," I said, '^if I 
could. My sense of moral obligation to you 
will not allow me to. Besides, I would be sure 
to get into legal difficulties. Duty calls me and 
I must obey. I shall serve out my term." 

^'What do you mean?" he growled. 

^^Why, had you forgotten my contract? That 
binds me. I cannot evade the responsibilities 
of that instrument. I must remain, painful as. 
it is to me and to you." 

/ 4 — Newspaper Man. 



210 THE MAKING OF A 

He scowled. ^^Let me see that contract," lie 
demanded. 

*' You've got a copy," I retorted; '4ook at 
yonr own. I'll quit when you pay me the full 
remaining face value of that contract and not 
before. ' ' 

He sent for the contract and his lawyer. It 
was the first time either of them had read that 
document. My lawyer friend had done his work 
well. There was fifteen hundred dollars due, 
but we compromised on twelve hundred dollars. 
The next morning I walked out of the place with 
twelve one-hundred-dollar bills in my pocket, 
and I never went back. I never blamed him for 
getting rid of me. I could not make his paper 
go, nor has anybody else been able to; but I 
have always blamed him for throwing out the 
others. They were doing good work and the 
fault was not theirs. However, all of them were 
soon provided for, and that, I suppose, was his 
way. 



NEWSPAPER MAN 211 



CHAPTER XXIV 

There was nothing left for me in that city. 
I went fishing for a time and then went to New 
York. I thought I was ripe for work down 
there. However, nobody else thought so to any 
great extent. One Park Eow paper offered me 
a job at twenty-five dollars a week, but I 
wouldn't take that, and another managing 
editor held out hopes for several weeks and 
then refused to give me a chance. Still I had 
plenty of money and plenty of good friends in 
the business and I knew it was only a matter 
of time. 

Some of my friends put me in with one of 
the state committees to help in the literary 
bureau, and I wrote miles and miles of campaign 
stuff commending the hero of San Juan Hill, 
Colonel Roosevelt, who was then running for 
governor of the state. The Colonel squeaked 



212 THE MAKING OF A 

through, and my job squeaked out at the iden- 
tical moment he squeaked in. 

Meantime I noticed that a certain magazine 
was running a series of articles called Great 
Business Organizations and was detailing the 
methods of some of the larger corporations. I 
had been observant while I was working with 
the committee and had learned a great deal 
about the business of running a state campaign. 
It was a business, too, not a haphazard venture, 
and it had that great business man and poli- 
tician, Benjamin B. Odell, Junior, at the head 
of it. So I wrote for that series an article de- 
scribing the business end of a state campaign, 
and I submitted it to the magazine. 

A few days after the election I was taken on 
the local staff of one of the New York papers. 
It was one of the smaller papers. I had measly 
assignments and made forty-one dollars in ten 
days. On the tenth day I received a letter from 
the editor of the magazine to which I had sent 
my article, inclosing a check for fifty dollars 
and an invitation to come and see him. I went. 



NEWSPAPER MAN 213 

We had a talk. He hired me to work for a news- 
paper syndicate he had bought and for his 
magazine. I went back to the newspaper office 
and quit. They didn't seem to mind. 

I stayed with the magazine for nearly two 
years, getting a good general idea of the busi- 
ness, for I worked in the advertising depart- 
ment, the circulation department and, later, on 
the editorial side, where in a few months I be- 
came managing editor. I didn't get much salary 
at the start, but I was advanced rapidly and had 
a chance to do some writing. I had decided to 
stick to writing. I had had all the desk work 
I needed, for though I felt I had been successful 
on the first paper where I had an executive 
desk, I knew I had failed on the second. Be- 
sides I had figured out there was more money 
in writing — ^if one could write — than in the 
executive work. I thought I could write. 

One afternoon — it was a holiday, Lincoln's 
Birthday, I think — I was coming downtown on 
the elevated road and happened on two friends 
who were on newspapers in the city. They had 



214 THE MAKING OF A 

a day off, too, and we spent our liberty together. 
Along about six o'clock one of them said: 
^^ There is a big Chinese banqnet down in Mott 
Street to-night. I've got several tickets in my 
desk. Let's get them and look it over." 

We went. I was given a seat at the table next 
to a big, fine-looking man whom I had met be- 
fore. He didn't remember it, but I did. He 
was the man who had so emphatically refused 
to give me a place in Chicago some years back. 
I didn't mention that, but talked the best I 
knew how to my editorial friend. He was then 
editorial director of the biggest New York 
paper. The New York grind killed him, but 
what a whale of an editor he was ! One of the 
friends who went to the banquet with me had 
been urging me to get back into the game. I 
had already decided to do so some time before, 
because stuck away as I was in the editorial 
rooms of a magazine I missed the grip of active 
newspaper work. 

The editorial director and I went uptown 
together. We talked a lot. I told him about 



NEWSPAPER MAN 215 

myself and that I should like to get back into 
the game. Also my newspaper friends put in 
a few good words. Next day I got a telegram 
from him. It said: *^I have been wondering 
since I talked with you last night if there is not 
some work on our paper you would like to take 
up. What do you think"?" 

I thought there was. I went down to see him 
and he hired me to go to Washington to run the 
Washington bureau for that paper. He gave 
me a good, big salary, which increased as the 
years went on. I was then thirty-two years 
old and I again felt I had arrived. That time 
it was true. 



216 THE MAKING OP A 



CHAPTEE XXV 

One of the rights guaranteed under the Con- 
stitution is that every American shall have full 
privilege to think and say his own particular 
business is a poor business and that he would 
have made a much greater success in any other 
line of endeavor. Newspaper men exercise this 
right unreservedly. There never is a gathering 
of reporters or editors that the talk does not 
eventually shift round to the lack of reward, 
the hopelessness as to future, and the general 
worthlessness of newspaper work as a career. 
Usually, too, the youngsters are the loudest in 
condemnation. After a boy has been a reporter 
for a year he thinks he knows all there is to 
know about his work, and maybe he does. At 
any rate he tells you what a barren field journal- 
ism is, that it gets a man nowhere, and that for 
the brains and service required a man in any 



NEWSPAPER MAN 217 

other profession wonld make much more money 
and much more reputation. Men older in the 
business talk about the same. 

Now I do not contend a man can get rich or 
even well-to-do in newspaper work except as 
an owner; but I do contend that if a man has 
an aptness for the business and will take the 
time to learn it, he can do about as well as if 
he went into any of the other professions — and 
have a thousand times more fun. At the start 
he can do better than he could do in law or 
medicine or usually in commercial business. The 
great difficulty with the newspaper business is 
that experience counts for little or nothing. An 
experienced doctor or an experienced lawyer 
or an experienced banker gets better fees and 
is held in higher regard because of his experi- 
ence. After a certain stage, experience in news- 
paper work counts for nothing. The great as- 
sets are youth and legs. 

One often wonders what becomes of the old 
men in newspaper work. You will find them 
stuck away at copy desks, or reading exchanges, 



218 THE MAKING OF A 

editing routine departments or writing editorial 
articles. If you look round the press desks at 
a National Convention, for example, where 
every newspaper has its best men, you will see 
the gray heads are largely outnumbered by the 
young men — ^men about thirty — ^who in addition 
to knowing as much about their business as the 
older ones, have the stamina to do the tremen- 
dously hard work. 

Granting all this, I still hold that if a young 
man has an aptitude for newspaper work and 
will learn his trade, there is no better career 
in this country or any other than newspaper 
work. In making this claim I do not arrogate 
to myself any special qualifications as a judge 
except these : I was actively in daily newspaper 
work from the time I was eighteen until I was 
thirty-nine. I left daily work then because I 
found a broader field for my writing, a field 
where I could utilize my experience and such 
knowledge of men and affairs as I had gained 
in those twenty-one years. I still consider my- 
self just as much of a newspaper man as I ever 



NEWSPAPER MAN 219 

was, and entitled to my opinion. My work has 
covered everything, from a comitry weekly to 
the biggest assignments on the biggest news- 
paper in the United States, which means the 
biggest in the world. I have played the whole 
string, and have some thoughts on the subject. 
A young man starts in newspaper work as a 
reporter. That is his apprenticeship. In rare 
cases a man may start as an editorial writer or 
as a specialist, but unless he has been a reporter 
and has learned that end of the work he never 
amounts to very much. The work of the re- 
porters is the heart's blood of the newspaper. 
They bring in the news. What they find out and 
write is what the editorial writer must base his 
comments on, and woe be to the editorial writer 
who does not keep in touch with the news staff. 
He gets to be an academic prig, who invariably 
forms his own opinions from the editorials he 
reads in his favorite papers. Eeal editorial 
writers never are anything but real reporters, 
with the privilege of commenting instead of re- 
citing. The old-fashioned commentator, who 



220 THE MAKING OF A 

shut himself up in a coop and spun out theories, 
is rapidly passing away. He has been lost in 
the shuffle. 

In the newest and most advanced newspaper 
building in this country, not long completed, 
there isn't a coop or a cavern or a private room 
on the editorial floor. Every man who has to 
do with the editorial end of that paper, from 
the humblest reporter to the imposing editor- 
in-chief, sits on one floor, out in the open, each 
man in touch with every other man. Why! 
Because the reporters who bring in and write 
the news are the mainspring of the paper. Be- 
cause it is essential that every man on that paper 
shall be in close communication with the scouts 
who are finding out what that big town is doing 
and what the world is doing — for the telegraph 
news is all furnished by reporters also — in order 
to construct an intelligent and forceful paper 
that shall contain an adequate presentation of 
what is happening in the world, adequately com- 
mented upon, displayed and handled. 

No managing editor or city editor or editor- 



NEWSPAPEE MAN 221 

in-chief of a daily newspaper ever amounted to 
more than a pedantic whoop who was not at the 
start a good reporter. There are plenty of 
them, of course, who never were good reporters, 
bnt they are not good editors either. They are 
imitations of the real thing. Go into any big 
newspaper office in this country and yon will 
find that the big men in charge served their 
grueling apprenticeship on the local staff, and 
usually on the local staff of some paper or 
papers in much smaller cities than they are 
working in now. The reporter is the foundation 
of the game. He is the arch and keystone 
and the pillars. An editor may be the most bril- 
liant of persons, but he is a dub unless he has 
a staff to report for him and to him, both locally 
and by wire. 

Wherefore, let us look a little mto this ques- 
tion of good reporters. There are two broad 
classes: The good reporter who can get the 
news but cannot write it except in an ordinary 
way and the good reporter who can get the news 
and write it in an extraordinary way. I have 



222 THE MAKING OF A 

heard legends of good reporters with wonderful 
noses for news who could bring in stories but 
could not put them up in decent shape. Every 
town and every office has had or has now one 
or two of these rough diamonds. Although I 
do not want to disparage them any, the reporter 
who gets anywhere is the chap who not only 
can find the news, but, having found it, can write 
it. You will discover that the good reporters 
who are valuable as news men only are the 
boys who are and have been for years lingering 
round at forty and fifty and sixty dollars a week, 
while the writing chap collects the big space 
biUs. 

Writing is just as much of a trade as laying 
bricks or putting in plumbing. Of course now 
and then a genius flashes who writes intuitively, 
but most of the men who are getting the money 
for writing in this country are men who have 
learned to write, just as a bricklayer learned 
to lay bricks. Getting the money may be an 
inartistic and, perhaps, a crass way of identify- 
ing the end and aim of writing, but there are 



NEWSPAPER MAN 223 

very few people in this country who write for 
any other real reason. They say they do, but 
they do not. The boys with the messages to 
deliver may be sincere about their messages, 
but they are also concerned about the checks. 

The only way to learn to write is to write. 
You cannot get it out of books or by ary other 
method than by grinding it out, and right here 
is where the newspaper owners and editors of 
this country do most to injure themselves and a 
good many of their men. It is almost the uni- 
versal custom, especially in the smaller offices 
where the good reporters come from, to grab 
a youngster who shows ability and aptitude and 
has the earmarks of good writing on him, and 
make some kind of a desk man of him. Thus 
you will find that the bright boy, who if he were 
kept at it and properly encouraged would de- 
velop into a star writer, is made a city editor 
or an assistant city editor or some thing of the 
kind and given an executive position as a re- 
ward of merit. Usually he is glad to take it, 
for it means more salary. That knocks the 



224 THE MAKING OF A 

writing out of him. He is too busy to write, 
and a man who would have made a good re- 
porter is turned into a mediocre desk man. 

Desk men are all right in their way — ^the 
papers have to have them. But the man who 
has it in him to make a good reporter rarely 
makes much of an executive. Such work re- 
quires a different kind of brains. The great 
geniuses in the newspaper business are the men 
who have both kinds of brains. They are not 
so common. Still, if you go over the country 
and pick out the great executives, the big man- 
aging editors, you will find that every last one 
of them at some time was a reporter, and a good 
one. Conversely, there are on editorial desks 
in this country scores of men who would have 
been good reporters and would have developed 
into excellent writing men, who are giving out 
assignments and running papers and only mak- 
ing an ordinary fist at it. 

I recognize the great worth of the capable 
city editor, and managing editor, and news 
editor. I admit that the good reporter would be 



NEWSPAPEE MAN 225 

wortliless witliout him to handle the copy, to fit 
it in, to realize its value or lack of value. The 
good editor complements the good reporter. 
One is essential to the other. What I do think 
is that for the man who has no capital but his 
brains the better end of the newspaper busi- 
ness is the writing end, not the executive end. 
Passing by all the rewards that may come to 
the executive, to the great editor, I still hold 
that for a career, for a satisfactory and satis- 
fying business, the writer has the better of it 
when you take a large view of the situation. 

By the ^^ better end'' of the business I mean 
that the writer who is as good as a writer as 
the executive is as an executive, or compara- 
tively so, can get almost as much money and 
can be much happier; have a much wider ex- 
perience, have a heap more fun, live a more 
pleasant life, know more people, see more 
things, get more reputation and beat him a 
dozen other ways. The mistake the young re- 
porter makes is in trying to get a desk for the 
vain privilege of having a title, some evanes- 

/ S — Newspaper Man. 



226 THE MAKING OF A 

cent authority and a few more dollars a week 
at the start, and I made that mistake myself. 
That is the reporter's usual ambition. The 
young man thinks he is getting on when he is 
made assistant city editor, or city editor, or 
dramatic editor, or some other kind of an 
editor; whereas, if he is a writer, if he has it 
in him to learn to write, he is really going back- 
ward instead of forward. 



NEWSPAPEE MAN 227 



CHAPTEE XXVI 

Newspaper work is divided into two parts: 
the writing end and the executive end — that is, 
of course, on the editorial side. Many editorial 
desks in this country are cluttered up with men 
who should be writers and many men are try- 
ing to write who should be executives. The 
difficulty is to sort them out. The place where 
so many young reporters fail is in not trying 
to learn to write, but grabbing a desk when the 
chance comes to them and trying to make other 
men write. Learning to write is hard work. 
It takes years to perfect the good writing me- 
chanic. I do not care how much imagination, 
how much facility of expression, how many ideas 
a man may have, he wastes seventy-five per 
cent, of his effectiveness unless he has learned 
his trade. After he has learned it is when his 
imagination, his facility of expression, his 



228 THE MAKING OF A 

knowledge of words, his assortment of ideas 
come in, and make him not only a good writer 
but a great writer. 

There are hundreds of men writing for news- 
papers in this country who are not writing so 
well as they might. Indeed, it is held by many 
critics that our newspaper writing is not so 
good as it was. That may or may not be true, 
but if it is true it is because the men who are 
in the direction of the newspapers haven't it 
in them to teach these undeveloped writers their 
business. Besides, the newspapers of this coun- 
try are in a way becoming standardized. There 
isn't so much individuality as there used to be. 
This is due to a multiplicity of causes, but chiefly 
to the perfection of the news-gathering facilities 
and resources and methods of the great press 
associations that are the backbone of the news- 
paper. Last fall, as I was coming across Wis- 
consin, I was told of a place up in the woods 
where an outlaw was fighting for a dam he had 
built and was holding up a big posse. It was 
a big, human-interest story. It is quite likely 



NEWSPAPEE MAN 229 

that ten years ago I should have been sent on 
that story, and if I had been, I could have called, 
within one or two, the names of the men from 
other papers I should have met there. I asked 
who was up there, and was told the Chicago 
papers had sent up a man apiece and that the 
other papers were relying on the press asso- 
ciations. 

This may be an argument against newspaper 
work as a career. I don't think it is, but it may 
be. In spite of standardizing the papers, in 
spite of the fact that the big newspapers of this 
country are coming to be more and more in- 
tensely local and somewhat provincial, I still 
think there is no better career in this country 
for a young man who has an aptitude for it 
than newspaper work. If you can do big work 
you will get big work to do. 

To get back to the executive end of newspaper 
work. On the larger papers all the big salaries, 
or most of them, are paid to the men who direct 
the papers. The chaps with the executive brains 
draw down the money. Notwithstanding tnat. 



230 THE MAKING OF A 

the writing man can beat them — and the real 
writing man does. He may not get so much 
money on the newspaper as the managing editor 
does, bnt he has a hundred times the oppor- 
tunity. Think of what it means! If yon de- 
velop yourself on a newspaper to be a good 
writer, if you get the reputation, as you surely 
will, you have the world by the tail, for it isn't 
necessary to remain with a newspaper. The 
whole field of literature is yours. You have 
learned your trade. You can go out and do 
what you please, where you please, and there 
will be no lack of a market. But if you are a 
managing editor and have not developed the 
writing side, you must remain a managing editor 
Tintil, in the inevitable course of events in a 
newspaper office, you are shoved back by the 
advent of some younger man with newer ideas 
and more vim than you have, and there is the 
beginning of the end. I can point out to you 
in this country scores of men who once held 
high editorial positions and are now in minor 
ones; but show me the writing man who is in 



NEWSPAPER MAN 231 

health who, having reached as high a place as 
a writer as these men did as executives, has 
suffered such reverses — not because of old age 
or infirmity, but because he has lost his market. 

I am not speaking about geniuses. There* 
have been only a few literary geniuses in this 
country and they are all dead. I mean good, 
skillful workmen. Why is it that in periodical 
literature, for example, the same names are con- 
stantly recurring in the tables of contents 1 Not 
because of office favoritism, as many amateurs 
hold, but because these are men who have 
learned their business. They know how to write. 
They can take an idea and make out of it the 
kind of a story the editor wants. It is the same 
in architecture, in medicine, in the law, in any 
other line of endeavor. The men who do the 
big work are the men who know how to do it. 
They had talent to begin with, of course ; but 
they developed that talent by hard work and 
painstaking application of it. 

One reason why the newspaper business is 
not a good business, seemingly, is because so 



232 THE MAKING OF A 

many men and women go into it as a makeshift 
and because so many persons who have failed 
elsewhere adopt it, or have it adopt them, be- 
cause *4t is so easy to write/' It certainly has 
allurements at the start. A bright, capable 
young fellow who can see things and tell about 
them can, in a few years, so far as reportorial 
worth goes, be as valuable to the paper as the 
much older man who has spent years in the serv- 
ice. Moreover, he can earn more money — at 
the start, mind you — than his colleague who 
studied law or medicine, or went into a bank or 
into a clerkship, or anything like that. It 
doesn't take long for a bright young cha^p in 
any kind of a city at all to earn twenty or 
twenty-five dollars a week. He can do it in a 
year or two, no matter how penurious his owner 
or editor may be, or get it somewhere else. How 
many young lawyers or young doctors can earn 
a thousand or twelve hundred dollars in the first 
year or two of their practice! Not one half of 
one per cent, of all those who start. 

The difficulty is that the advancement, at first 



NEWSPAPER MAN 233 

so rapid, gets painfully slow, and after a cer- 
tain point is reached experience counts for noth- 
ing. That is what makes the average reporter 
think and say that his business is no good. The 
trouble isn^t with the business, it is with him. 
If he was good enough to make a flying start 
and go along rapidly he is good enough to go 
as far as he likes if he will take the trouble 
to learn. Not many of them do. They are 
content with the first results, and fall into the 
rut that sooner or later will lead them to the 
exchange table or, if they get out, to the political 
job, the private secretaryship, the press agent ^s 
plac€, or to some other similar line of work. 
They yelp about the lack of reward in the busi- 
ness and do not try to develop their own 
capacities. 

I am not saying that every man or that even 
one tenth of the men going into newspaper work 
can learn to write well, but I am saying that 
not one tenth of the men who do go into it with 
that latent talent do so develop themselves. 
** Sufficient unto the day" is the motto that is 



234 THE MAKING OF A 

the curse of the young reporter. He is getting 
along swimmingly. He has good work and good 
pay. He does not progress. At the end of his 
fifth year he is not writing much better than 
he was at the end of his first year, when some 
of the knobs had been knocked off him by his 
editors and copy-readers. He spends his time 
sitting round and deploring his lack of oppor- 
tunity in his calling, instead of making a few 
opportunities for himself. 

The life tends to that. A reporter, by the 
necessities of his business, is constantly thrown 
in contact with the big men of his city. Un- 
consciously he arrogates to himself the habits 
of mind and, perhaps, the habits of living of 
those men. He considers himself as good as 
they are — and usually he is — ^but he lacks the 
income. He gets into an inflated style of living 
and blows up. It is at best a happy-go-lucky 
sort of a life, but the happiest in it are those 
who do not pin too much faith on the luck end. 

Another trouble with the newspaper game is 
the jealousy of the men in it. A gathering of 



NEWSPAPEE MAN 235 

newspaper men is like a gathering of soubrettes 
— few people in it can see anybody but them- 
selves. If any man sticks his head above the 
universal level of the grass in which all are 
traveling they all take a clout at that head. 
Almost all praise is given grudgingly. You'd 
think to hear them talk that any man who does 
a big story well did it well by accident, and not 
by any means so well as it would have been done 
had the speaker had the chance. They are the 
greatest gossips in the world, which is natural, 
for their business is to find out things about 
people and they cannot print half they find out. 
Then, too, their mode of life is irregular and 
they are a sort of people by themselves, for 
if there is any one thing the ordinary person 
is mystified about it is the making of a news- 
paper. 

Admitting all this — admitting that newspaper 
work is disappointing in its rewards ; that it is 
essentially an occupation for young men; that 
men who get old in it are likely to be shoved 
aside; that the pay is not commensurate with 



236 THE MAKING OF A 

the labor and the intelligence required; that 
reputation secured in it is temporary ; that the 
grind saps strength ; that the life has a tendency 
to invite the forming of ruinous habits ; that it 
deprives its follower of an opportunity for social 
enjo^nnent; that young men become old in it 
quickly and that old men become useless; that 
a single mistake may mean the loss of a posi- 
tion; that business-office rules may prevent 
truth-telling; that special interests may have 
to be conserved ; that it is the hardest work on 
earth — I still contend that newspaper work in 
his country offers an exceptional advantage to 
the young man who has an aptitude for it. 

By aptitude for it I do not mean an abnor- 
mally endowed nose for news — most of that sort 
of thing is fake anyhow — or a tremendous talent 
for writing. What I mean is that a young man, 
to make a success of it, must have the strength 
of will to work unceasingly hard for years, 
strength of character enough to keep his habits 
reasonably within bounds, and strength of de- 
termination enough to go at his business with 



NEWSPAPER MAN 237 

the desire to learn it thoroughly, not take it 
slap-dash and, for that reason, after he has 
slap-dashed himself out, remain at the thirty 
or forty dollar level. 

No matter how good he is, he will never get 
rich at it ; that side of the business may as well 
be dismissed from the mind. But he will live 
a life that is full of interest; he will see all 
there is to be seen, meet all worth meeting ; be 
a part of all great a:ffairs ; exert a weighty in- 
fluence through his reporting ; have a potential 
power he never will realize, but which will be 
there just the same; have more fun and get 
enough to live well on; and, if he has applied 
himself to the mechanics of his business, has 
stored in his mind the fruits of his experiences, 
has conserved the acquaintances and friendships 
he has made, will be ready to stand aside for 
the younger man when he can no longer com- 
pete with the dash of youth and step immedi- 
ately into a wider and more profitable and, if 
possible, more useful field. 

The fault isn't with the newspaper business — 



238 THE MAKING OF A 

it is with the men in it. The rewards are there, 
just as certainly as they are in banking or in 
any profession ; not so munificent, perhaps, but 
big enough to satisfy any one, and the life is 
so much more interesting, so much more varied, 
the perspective is so much greater, the view is 
so much broader that the compensations are 
more than adequate. If you want money keep 
out. It isn't in the game. But if you want ex- 
perience, to know life in all its phases, to know 
men and either make or destroy them, to be 
in touch with what is happening, go in. 

Moreover, it is a better business, a cleaner 
business than it was. The old days of the 
frowsy, alleged-bohemian, drunken reporter and 
editor have passed. The present-day reporter 
is an honorable, clean, self-respecting man, 
working honorably and cleanly. There is no 
business in this country where so much for the 
public good can be done and is done. 

In my opinion newspaper work offers better 
opportunities, aside from the accumulation of 
money, for real, serviceable, result-getting labor 



NEWSPAPER MAN 239 

than any other business or profession a young 
man may choose. Since I secured my first place, 
twenty-five years ago, the standards of the men 
in it, and also of the newspapers, have im- 
measurably improved. They will keep improv- 
ing. The work is hard, the pay is not large, 
but the advantages are many and the oppor- 
tunities are waiting. 



The End 



NOV 30 1912 



LRBMy'26 



LIBRARY OF COSSll" 



022 204 667 1 



